Medium range weather forecasts in India during Monsoon 1994

Aiming to enhance and sustain farm production in India, an Agromet Advisory Service has been started. Numerical weather prediction output from a spectral model (T80L18) is fine‐tuned by employing statistical and synoptic methods to prepare 24 h, 48 h and 72 h weather forecasts for 20 locations during the principal crop growing period of 1994. Also, weekly rainfall forecasts for 35 meteorological sub‐divisions during monsoon period are produced. The accuracy of location‐specific rain/no‐rain event forecasts was found to be 70%. However, the root mean square error for the quantitative rainfall forecast was 17 mm; hence, there is a need for further improvement. The accuracy of maximum temperature (at 10 locations) and minimum temperature (at 18 locations) was 2 °C. The forecasts of rainfall event, temperature, cloud cover and wind speed showed considerable skill over random forecasts. The performance of trends and temporal variability in weekly sub‐divisional rainfall forecasts were evaluated.