Weather Forecast Services The Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva (GKMS) of Earth System Science Organization (ESSO)-India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been successful in providing the crop specific advisories to the farmers at the district level twice weekly through different media like print/visual/Radio/ IT based including short message service (SMS) and Integrated Voice Response System (IVRS) for a wider dissemination. At present, the GKMS products are disseminated through SMS and IVRS to 11.46 million farmers in the country. Stating this in reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, the Minister for Science & Technology and Earth Science Dr. Harsh Vardhan said ESSO-IMD is not providing forecast and advisory services at the Block Level at present. However research efforts are initiated by ESSO -IMD to explore possibility of generating sub district scale Agro-meteorological forecast with acceptable level of verification skill in a pilot mode. For the benefit of fisherman community, a satellite-based application for the fishermen community of the country, called "Potential Fishing Zone (PFZ) Advisories", is being generated and provided on using the satellite data and Geographic Information System (GIS) tools since 1999 useful for location of fish grounds/aggregation . In addition, the Ocean State Forecast (OSF) (wave height and direction, wind speed and direction, ocean currents, sea surface temperature, depth of mixed layer and thermo cline, sea level at major and minor ports, etc. is also being provided to fisherman. Dr. Harsh Vardhan pointed out that the Indian Institute of Applied Economics had assessed that such services to farmers contribute upto about Two lakh crores Rupees and services extended for the benefit of fishermen amount to over 34,000 crore rupees. ESSO-IMD, in coordination with State Governments, is also generating forecasts for major pilgrimages such as Amarnath Yatra, Manasasarovar Yatra, Chardham Yatra, Kumbhmela, etc. and also various mountaineering expeditions launched by the Armed Forces for Mount Everest and several other Himalayan mountains. Continuous efforts are on to generate value added forecast products at different spatial scales (State, District, City etc.) and temporal scales (from few hours to 5 days) for all the regions of the country. The tourist city forecasts and their updates in particular are made available through designated state government level functionaries, electronic & print media and for general public on ESSO-IMD's national as well as regional office websites. ESSO-IMD has operationalized its location specific now-casting weather service across the country. This service activity currently covers 155 urban centres under which now- cast of severe weather (Thunderstorms; heavy rainfall from lows/depressions over the land) in 3-6h range is issued. Origin, development/movement of severe weather phenomena are regularly monitored through DWRs and with all available other observing systems (AWSs; ARGs; Automatic Weather Observing Systems-AWOS; satellite derived wind vectors, temperature, moisture fields etc.)
