Utilization of high resolution short range weather forecast for agro advisory services

Abstract

Agriculture is heavily weather dependent in India. The economy of the country is largely synchronized to the success of agriculture every year, as it contributes nearly 25% to gross domestic product (GDP). Farming community, planners and line department people always look forward to the accurate forecast from the weather men for decision making process in the event of natural disturbances. The district level agro advisories provided by IMD using medium range forecast (3-10 days) are good but covering large area. The advent of mesoscale model (Mesoscale Model (MM5) & Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) etc) with high resolution (available at 9×9 sq km or below) enable the weathermen to give forecasts at village level and also location specific. This requires verification before value addition to it. Mesoscale model forecast data at 9×9 sq km grid have been generated by Department of meteorology and oceanography, Andhra University was collected for verification over Andhra Padesh.The verification skill scores, ratio scores, correlation coefficient and RMSE have been analyzed. Majority of the stations are showing good correlation for maximum and minimum temperature and relative humidity, where as rainfall forecast have desirable skill scores for most of the stations.