Tamil Nadu Agricultural University

Weather plays a major role in agriculture and the magnitude of weather events decide the success of the crop production. Weather based response farming promises sustainable productivity and net return by lowering input loss risk and increasing input use efficiency. The response farming is highly dependent on the accurate weather information in advance, at least for a week. Though every region has a unique seasonal climate pattern, the weather over the next few days is highly dynamic, depending on geographical location, topography, and green fractions and other factors. Timely and accurate medium range weather information become critical information for the planning of day today farm activities. In this context, Agro Climate Research Centre, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University is issuing block level medium range weather forecast since 2011, for the next six day and updating every day morning 10 AM. In continuation of that, under the TNAU sponsored University Research Project, the medium range forecast has been further downscaled spatially (village level (3km resolution) and temporally (15minutes, hourly and daily) in Weather Research Forecast (WRF) model to cater the local circulations and hour of happenings. This forecast has been verified in 17 locations covering all the seven Agro Climate Zones of Tamil Nadu during 2020 - 2021, had the Forecast Accuracy Index between 0.80 - 0.95 during Winter (CWP, January - February), 0.60 - 0.75 during Summer (HWP, March - May), 0.55 and 0.70 during South West Monsoon (SWM, June - September) and between 0.60 to 0.75 during North East Monsoon (NEM, October - December).The Forecast Usability Percentage had ranged between 60 - 80 during CWP, 40 - 60 during HWP, 50 - 70 during SWM and between 70 to 90 during NEM.