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Journalism of Courage
PUNE, Dec 23: Beginning first week of June 1999, the Indian Meteorological Department will start long-term forecasting for the 35 sub divisions in the country for the first time in its prediction history of more than 100 years.
This means that the forecast will not just be limited to the familiar 8220;it is likely to rain in the next few days8221; but will now be given on a seasonal basis, spreading over four months, helping to predict production of food grain and even the productivity of the land in a particular region. 8220;This kind of information can help the government to decide where they need to export more food grain or even how much fertiliser would be needed in an area,8221; said V Thapliyal, Deputy Director General of Meteorology, IMD, who was attending the annual monsoon workshop organised by the Indian Meteorological Society.
8220;Smaller the area, more the chance of error, but we have attained 70 per cent accuracy for certain areas,8221; says Thapliyal, adding that the multi regression model that was developed in 1991 and has been tested and tried since, has given them the confidence to go ahead with their decision. Predictions are presently made for the peninsula and north-west India only. Eight papers were presented during the day-long workshop. These included long range forecasting, interesting features of monsoon 1998, variability of monsoons and recent monsoon performances.
