1.How weather forecasting is useful? 2.What is the aim of weather forecasting? 3.What is weather forecasting? 4.How weather is predicted? 5.How reliable is this weather forecasting? 6.What types of weather forecasting exists? 7.How to get information on weather forecasts? 8.How simple techniques help in predicting weather? After successful completion of 5 Lessons in this Module, you have learned to answer: Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting

Lesson 1: Importance of Weather Forecasting Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Lesson 3: Types of Weather Forecasting Lesson 4:Weather Forecasting Resources Lesson 5: Simple Techniques to Forecast Weather The 5 Lessons in this Module are: Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting

Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting After successful completion of this Lesson, you have learned to answer: 1.What is weather forecasting? 2.How weather is predicted? 3.How reliable is this weather forecasting? 4.What is Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and how weather forecasting is carried out by IMD?

Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting What is weather forecasting? Weather forecasting is a prediction of what the weather will be like in an hour, tomorrow, next week or during a season. Weather forecasts, such as: "Look for cloudy skies with afternoon thunderstorms and a high of 38 0 C" provide critical information about the weather to come.

Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting How weather is predicted? Weather forecasters collect data on atmospheric conditions, including temperature, humidity, pressure, wind speed, and its direction etc. High-speed computers, meteorological satellites, and weather radars are tools used to collect the weather data. Such data are fed into the sophisticated computers to interpret the weather conditions.

Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting How weather is predicted? Weather forecasting is a very important activity of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD). IMD provides very comprehensive forecasting services for different users. IMD has forecasting offices at its 6 Regional Meteorological Centers and Meteorological Centers at the State capitals. In addition it has two major forecasting centers at New Delhi and Pune.

Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting How weather is predicted? Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) maintains a countrywide network of observational stations from where weather reports are received at Pune through the Regional Telecommunication Hub based at New Delhi. With the help of these reports and other observations from the globe, the Pune office issues the All India Daily Weather Bulletin and Weather Forecasts for the entire country.

Lesson 2: About Weather Forecasting Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting How reliable is this weather forecasting? Atmospheric conditions change rapidly. Hence, even with sophisticated computer models, satellite images, and monitoring stations across most of the planet, forecasts can be not exact. That is, sometimes the weather is more predictable than at other times.

This concludes Lesson 2- About Weather Forecasting - in this Module. Next Lesson is about types of weather forecasting. Select Lesson 3 from Module VI contents Virtual Academy for the Semi Arid Tropics Course on Crop-Weather Relationships Module VI: Weather Forecasting