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To help farmers plan their crop season better, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) will roll out a new weather forecast product which would give them weather information for three weeks at a stretch, according to M Rajeevan, Secretary of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
“We have been doing this on an experimental basis for the entire country for a few years. So, we want to inform people, particularly farmers,” Rajeevan told BusinessLine . Currently, apart from its seasonal long-range monsoon forecast, the Met office issues short range forecasts valid up to 72 hours and medium range forecasts that covers 4-10 days. While short range forecasts are considerably accurate, medium range ones are despatched with lesser details and accuracy.
“Now we want to extend this up to 20 days as we find that the model can enable fairly accurate forecasts,” said the MoES secretary.
The forecasts are done by an ensemble modelling system using four different models. The ensemble has been trained to give extended forecasts by a group at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology in Pune and it has already been handed over to the IMD.
How farmers benefit?
To explain how this would help farmers, Rajeevan cited the example of Maharashtra last year. The State, he said, received showers early in the month of June last year, which was at least a week earlier than the actual onset of monsoon in Maharashtra.
“As farmers in the State were getting ready for sowing, we realised that a long dry spell was in the offing. In turn, we passed on this information to farmers through the Agrimet service. It turned out to be a 10-day-long dry spell. While some farmers went ahead with sowing thinking that that monsoon has commenced, a large number of them took heed and waited for the active monsoon spell too start,” he said.
“Since last year, we have been issuing it weekly every Thursday. Some farmers have already started using the service. Now it will be officially launched,” he said. The forecasts will be for all 36 meteorological subdivisions in India.
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