Rainfall is now forecast every month in the monsoon

- This new initiative of the Meteorological Department will see a change in the rain-fed states

A new experiment is now being launched by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). This new experiment will help farmers and the administration to maintain agricultural readiness based on accurate forecast of rainfall distribution in the monsoon. The department will start issuing Long Range Forecast (LRF) on a monthly basis for the period June to September 2021. So far the meteorological department has been giving LRFs for only three months during the monsoon. The first is the initial estimate, which is usually released in mid-April, and the second phase estimate is revised as needed in June. The meteorological department used four major regions ઉત્તર the Northwest, the East and the Northeast, the Central and Southern Peninsula parts જો and, if necessary, the region-wise forecast.

Subsequently, the department also forecasts the remaining two months of the monsoon in August. However, accurate and updated forecasts for June, July, August and September were not available. Apart from this, separate rainfall is not forecast for monsoon based states like Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand.

Due to the absence of this information, planning for agricultural works and management at the administrative level could not be done properly. Agricultural work in these states of the country is based entirely on monsoon. However, the new initiative of the Meteorological Department will see a lot of change in these rain-fed states.

The department has been forecasting LRFs for the entire country for many years, but demand for LRFs is rising on a regular and monthly basis, the meteorological department said. The technology that the department has been using since 2012 to forecast monsoons and rains was not enough to forecast at regular intervals. However now the meteorological department has started working towards increasing the frequency of LRF with the distribution of rainfall by region for the entire country.

In addition to relying on its own technology for increasingly regular forecasting, the meteorological department will also seek the help of numerical forecasting technologies available in the world. The department has long been a member of World Meteorological (WMO).

According to experts, the latest IMD forecast is very important for the future. Until now LRF was only available for the whole country but this data was not available on a sector wise basis every month. The availability of forecasts every month during June to September will help farmers to plan agricultural operations. Not only that, the changes in the weather in the final zone will also be seen in the new LRF.