India Meteorological Department
India Meteorological Department is a government agency involved in all things meteorological and its related fields of study.
What is meteorology?
Meteorology can be defined as the branch of science that relates to the atmosphere and its phenomena, related weather, and weather forecasting. The related subjects are Seismology, Geography, Geology, etc.
India Meteorological Department (IMD)
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) was established in 1875, and it is our national meteorological service. It is the main administrative government agency that deals with meteorology, seismology, and other related subjects.
IMD has overall administrative responsibility from the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. It is headquartered in New Delhi.
IMD Mandate
The IMD mandate and functions are explained below.
- Make meteorological observations and provide current observations and forecasting observations to facilitating the best possible operation of weather dependent activities such as, irrigation, agriculture, aviation, shipping, offshore oil exploration, etc.
- Provide warnings for extreme weather phenomena such as tropical cyclones, dust storms, heat waves, cold waves, heavy rains, heavy snow, etc.
- Make met related statistics for agriculture, industries, water resource management, oil exploration, and any other strategically important activities for the country.
- Conduct research in meteorology and allied subjects.
- Detect and locate earthquakes and assess seismicity for diverse parts of the country for development projects.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Agriculture
India Meteorological Department (IMD) provides direct services to the farmer communities.
• Established in 1932 under the Division of Agricultural Meteorology, its office is in Pune.
• The service was established to reduce the impacts of adverse weather on crop production.
• IMD also provides information to assist communities in taking advantage of favourable weather conditions that may provide an increase in agricultural yield.
The services of the Division can be briefly summarized as:
• Gramin Krishi Mausam Seva
• Dissemination of Agromet Advisories
• Feedback & Awareness of Agromet Service
• Training Programmes to AMFUs (Agro-Meteorological Field Units)
India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Aviation
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and Director-General of Civil Aviation of India (DGCA) require services and data that are critical to the national and international civil aviation sector.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) monitors tropical cyclone development in its area of responsibility and issues advisory information for ICAO, DGCA, Meteorological Watch offices in country and neighbouring countries.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) and Water facetes in the Country
IMD provides assistance and advice on meteorological aspects of hydrology, water management and multipurpose river valley project management. Central Water Commission, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Water Resources, Railways, Damodar Valley Flood Control Authorities, and State Governments are clients using these services. The Hydromet Division of IMD provides information via reports and maps of various rainfall projects through its ‘Customised Rainfall Information System (CRIS)’ on the CRIS portal.