Questions and answers

What is Chaatak?

Chaatak tells you the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) official warnings, and the weather where you are, in your own language — by voice or by typing. Ask about the weather, or whether today is good for spraying a field, travelling or playing cricket, and it answers from the forecast.

It was built by Team Overcast for Smart India Hackathon 2026, for IMD’s problem statement on early warnings.

Do I need an account?

No. Anyone can ask and get an answer. Signing in with Google keeps your chats, and lets you save up to three places and receive their warnings automatically.

Where does the weather come from?

Warnings come from IMD, for your district. The current weather and the forecast come from Open-Meteo, a weather-model service, and are marked as model values. Every answer shows its source and the time it was issued on the line beneath it.

Does the AI make up the numbers?

No. The AI writes the sentence around the numbers; it never produces a number itself. Every number in an answer is checked against the data before the answer is shown, and if the check fails Chaatak shows a plain pre-written answer instead.

What do “model”, “observed” and “bulletin” mean?

“Model” means a value computed by a weather model — an estimate, not a reading from a rain gauge. “Observed” means a weather station measured it. “Bulletin” means it is IMD’s official warning. Chaatak always says which of these you are looking at.

What if there is no data for my area?

Chaatak says so plainly. It does not borrow a neighbouring district’s numbers, and it does not guess.

Is the air quality India’s official AQI?

Where a CPCB monitoring station within 25 km has a current reading, yes: it is CPCB’s National AQI, measured at that station, and the screen names the station and its distance. Where there is none, Chaatak shows a modelled value on the European scale instead and says so — the two scales use different breakpoints and cannot be compared.

What do the warning colours mean?

They are IMD’s. Green — no warning. Yellow warning — be aware. Orange warning — be prepared. Red warning — take action now.

The colour is always written out in words too, so it can be read in bright sun or without colour vision.

Can I get warnings without asking?

Yes. Sign in, save up to three places, and turn on notifications on this device or link Telegram. When IMD issues a warning for one of your districts it reaches you by itself — and if IMD withdraws it early, you are told that too.

Is a warning for my exact village?

IMD issues warnings by district, so a warning covers the whole district. Chaatak shows the district it applies to, and never draws a boundary IMD did not publish.

How does voice work?

Tap the microphone and speak. When you stop, your question goes by itself — or tap again to send it straight away. The answer is read aloud, and then Chaatak listens for your next question. Tap the button to stop at any time.

Speech is recognised by Bhashini, the Government of India’s language platform. If Bhashini cannot be reached, your browser’s own speech recognition is used instead.

Which languages can I use?

You can ask and hear answers in Hindi, English, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil and Punjabi — and in Hinglish. Chaatak replies in the language and script you used. The screens themselves are in Hindi and English for now.

It understands dialects such as Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Haryanvi and Rajasthani, and replies in standard Hindi.

What happens to my voice recording?

It is sent through Chaatak’s server to Bhashini to be turned into text, and Chaatak does not keep it. The microphone is on only while you are talking to Chaatak — it switches off while the answer is read out, when you tap stop, and after thirty seconds of silence.

Does Chaatak track my location?

No. Your location is asked for only when a question needs a place and you did not name one — and you can always say no and type a place instead. It is used to find your town and then discarded: Chaatak keeps the town, not your exact position.

What is stored, and where?

As a guest, your chat stays in this browser tab and is gone when you close it. If you sign in, your chats, saved places and language settings are kept in your account, on servers in India. You can delete a chat at any time, or delete your account and everything in it from the account menu.

To understand some questions and write answers, the text of your question is sent to an AI service. The weather numbers never come from it.

What should I not rely on Chaatak for?

Forecasts are for a whole day, not hour by hour, so an answer about “tomorrow evening” reasons from the day’s figures. Warnings cover whole districts. Model values can differ from what you see outside. In a very noisy place speech can be misheard — you can always type.

Chaatak is not an emergency service. In danger, follow your local administration and IMD, and call 112.

Does it work without the internet?

Partly. Chaatak keeps the last answer it gave and shows it offline, with how old it is. New weather and new warnings need the internet back.