Meet 20-year-old JNTU student, behind ‘Telangana’s weatherman’ on X

Hyderabad: From being fascinated by the rains to forecasting it successfully, the journey of 20 year old T Balaji has been filled with a lot of accomplishments. He not only gained over 1.2 lakh followers on his X handle, ‘Telangana Weatherman’ for his forecasts, but he was also invited by the United States Consulate for a knowledge exchange program this year.

T Balaji in an interaction with Hyderabad Mail speaks about his journey so far and what he aims to do in future in terms of weather forecast.

Watching rains as a child

T Balaji says that his interest in reading weather started as early as when he was in high school. “As a child, I was always fascinated by rain. I used to sit and watch, as it rained. Then from around 8th class, I started reading about the nuances of weather through research papers and articles on Geography, atmospheric patterns, monsoons and others. And I wanted to share this knowledge so that it helps people. And it is during COVID-19, I have started sharing my forecasts through social media handles from 2020.”

Cut to four years later, Balaji has now over one lakh followers on X, who eagerly wait for his forecasts and plan their schedule accordingly. His timely updates and precise forecasts have helped several people during intense weather events such as Hyderabad Floods.

His work is well recognised by the United States Consulate, which invited him to an Exchange program in America in July 2024. Speaking about his experience over there, Balaji said, “We have covered four cities in four different states. In these places, the weather was completely different from our Telangana. Some places were too cloudy, some places were too deserted, some places were cold and some places were hot. I have experienced a mixed weather pattern and it fascinated me. We had important meetings over there and met a lot of experts. We learned their forecast methods, their disaster tackling methods, their infrastructure and others. Further we have also shared on how it works in India and the scope for improvement.”

Plans to start his own start up

Balaji, who is in the final leg of his Engineering at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University Hyderabad(JNTU-Hyderabad), aims to begin a startup on weather forecast. “As of now, I would like to write GATE for higher education and would also check out campus placements. But once settled financially, I also would like to begin a startup on weather,” says Balaji.

He further adds that it is his aim “to provide better weather forecasting to the people of Telangana in a timely manner so that they can plan accordingly, well in advance. I want to set up an organization,” ends Balaji.