India Meteorological Department (IMD) is an Indian agency of the

Ministry of Earth Sciences The Ministry of Earth Sciences is an executive ministry of the Government of India, established on 29 January, 2006. It was formed through the reorganisation of the Department of Ocean Development and the assumption of administrative control ov ...

of the

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

. It is the principal agency responsible for

meteorological Meteorology is the scientific study of the Earth's atmosphere and short-term atmospheric phenomena (i.e. weather), with a focus on weather forecasting. It has applications in the military, aviation, energy production, transport, agriculture ...

observations,

weather forecasting Weather forecasting or weather prediction is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather info ...

and

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic ...

. IMD is headquartered in

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...

and operates hundreds of observation stations across India and Antarctica. Regional offices are at

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

Mumbai Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial capital and the most populous city proper of India with an estimated population of 12 ...

Kolkata Kolkata, also known as Calcutta ( its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River, west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary ...

Nagpur Nagpur (; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Nāgapura'') is the second capital and third-largest city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is called the heart of India because of its central geographical location. It is the largest and most populated city i ...

Guwahati Guwahati () the largest city of the Indian state of Assam, and also the largest metropolis in northeastern India. Dispur, the capital of Assam, is in the circuit city region located within Guwahati and is the seat of the Government of Assam. Th ...

and

New Delhi New Delhi (; ) is the Capital city, capital of India and a part of the Delhi, National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the Government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Parliament ...

. IMD is also one of the six

Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre A Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) is responsible for the distribution of information, advisories, and warnings regarding the specific program they have a part of, agreed by consensus at the World Meteorological Organization as ...

s of the

World Meteorological Organisation The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics. The WMO originated from the Interna ...

. It has the responsibility for forecasting, naming and distribution of warnings for

tropical cyclone A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

s in the Northern Indian Ocean region, including the Malacca Straits, the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. Geographically it is positioned between the Indian subcontinent and the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese peninsula, located below the Bengal region. Many South Asian and Southe ...

, the

Arabian Sea The Arabian Sea () is a region of sea in the northern Indian Ocean, bounded on the west by the Arabian Peninsula, Gulf of Aden and Guardafui Channel, on the northwest by Gulf of Oman and Iran, on the north by Pakistan, on the east by India, and ...

and the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

History

In 1686,

Edmond Halley Edmond (or Edmund) Halley (; – ) was an English astronomer, mathematician and physicist. He was the second Astronomer Royal in Britain, succeeding John Flamsteed in 1720. From an observatory he constructed on Saint Helena in 1676–77, Hal ...

published his treatise on the Indian summer

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in Atmosphere of Earth, atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annu ...

, which he attributed to a seasonal reversal of winds due to the differential heating of the Asian landmass and the Indian Ocean. The first meteorological observatories were established in India by the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

. These included the Calcutta Observatory in 1785, the Madras Observatory in 1796 and the Colaba Observatory in 1826. Several other observatories were established in India during the first half of the 19th century by various provincial governments.

The Asiatic Society The Asiatic Society is an organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of " Oriental research" (in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions). It was founded by the philologist Will ...

, founded in

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

in 1784 and in

Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...

in 1804, promoted the study of meteorology in India.

Henry Piddington Henry Piddington (7 January 1797 – 7 April 1858) was an English sea captain who sailed in East India and China and later settled in Bengal where he worked as a curator of a geological museum and worked on scientific problems, and is particula ...

published almost 40 papers dealing with

tropical storms A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system with a low-pressure area, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depending on its locat ...

from Calcutta between 1835 and 1855 in ''The Journal of the Asiatic Society''. He also coined the term ''

cyclone In meteorology, a cyclone () is a large air mass that rotates around a strong center of low atmospheric pressure, counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern Hemisphere as viewed from above (opposite to an ant ...

'', meaning the coil of a snake. In 1842, he published his landmark thesis, ''Laws of the Storms''. After a

hit

in 1864, and the subsequent famines in

1866 Events January * January 1 ** Fisk University, a historically black university, is established in Nashville, Tennessee. ** The last issue of the abolitionist magazine '' The Liberator'' is published. * January 6 – Ottoman troops clash ...

and

1873 Events January * January 1 ** Japan adopts the Gregorian calendar. ** The California Penal Code goes into effect. * January 17 – American Indian Wars: Modoc War: First Battle of the Stronghold – Modoc Indians defeat the Unit ...

due to the failure of the monsoons, it was decided to organise the collection and analysis of meteorological observations under one roof. As a result, the India Meteorology Department was established on 15 January 1875. Henry Francis Blanford was appointed the first Meteorological Reporter of the IMD. In May 1889,

Sir John Eliot Sir John Eliot (11 April 1592 – 27 November 1632) was an English statesman who was serially imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he eventually died, by King Charles I for advocating the rights and privileges of Parliament. Early life T ...

was appointed the first ''Director General of Observatories'' in the erstwhile capital, Calcutta. The IMD headquarters were later shifted to

Shimla Shimla, also known as Simla ( the official name until 1972), is the capital and the largest city of the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. In 1864, Shimla was declared the summer capital of British India. After independence, the city ...

in 1905, then to

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

in 1928 and finally to

in 1944. IMD became a member of the World Meteorological Organisation after

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

on 27 April 1949. The agency has gained in prominence due to the significance of the monsoon rains on Indian agriculture. It plays a vital role in preparing the annual monsoon forecast, as well as in tracking the progress of the monsoon across India every season.

Organisation

The IMD is headed by the ''Director General of Meteorology'', currently Mrutyunjay Mohapatra. IMD has six ''Regional Meteorological Centre''s, each under a Deputy Director General. These are located in

, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur and New Delhi. There is also a Meteorological Centre in each state capital. Other IMD units such as Forecasting Offices, Agrometeorological Advisory Service Centers, Hydro-meteorological Office, Flood Meteorological Offices, Area Cyclone Warning Centers and Cyclone Warning Centers are usually co-located with various observatories or meteorological center. IMD operates a network of hundreds of surface and glacial observatories, Upper Air (high altitude) stations,

ozone Ozone () (or trioxygen) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , break ...

and radiation observatories and meteorological radar stations. Additional data is received from India's constellation of satellites, such as Kalpana-1, Megha-Tropiques and instruments on board the IRS series and the

INSAT The Indian National Satellite System or INSAT, is a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to satisfy telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology, and search and rescue ope ...

series of satellites. Data and observations are also reported into the IMD network from meteorological instruments on board Indian merchant navy and

Indian Navy The Indian Navy (IN) (ISO 15919, ISO: ) is the Navy, maritime and Amphibious warfare, amphibious branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of the Naval Staff (India), Chief ...

ships. IMD was the first organisation in India to deploy a message switching computer for supporting its global data exchange. IMD collaborates with other agencies such as the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting and the National Institute of Ocean Technology. IMD also operates seismic monitoring centres at key locations for earthquake monitoring and measurements.

Tasks

IMD undertakes observations, communications, forecasting and weather services. In collaboration with the

Indian Space Research Organisation The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO ) is India's national List of government space agencies, space agency, headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka. It serves as the principal research and development arm of the Department of Space (DoS), ...

, the IMD also uses the IRS series and the

Indian National Satellite System The Indian National Satellite System or INSAT, is a series of multipurpose geostationary satellites launched by the ISRO, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to satisfy telecommunications, broadcasting, meteorology, and search and rescu ...

(INSAT) for weather monitoring of the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

. IMD was first weather bureau of a developing country to develop and maintain its own satellite system. IMD is one of the six worldwide

s of the Tropical Cyclone Programme of the World Weather Watch of the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...

. It is regional nodal agency for forecasting, naming and disseminating warnings about

in the Indian Ocean north of the

Equator The equator is the circle of latitude that divides Earth into the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Southern Hemisphere, Southern Hemispheres of Earth, hemispheres. It is an imaginary line located at 0 degrees latitude, about in circumferen ...

New initiatives

The IMD launched System of Aerosol Monitoring and Research (SAMAR) in January 2016 to study the concentration of

Black carbon Black carbon (BC) is the light-absorbing refractory form of Chemical_element, elemental carbon remaining after pyrolysis (e.g., charcoal) or produced by incomplete combustion (e.g., soot). Tihomir Novakov originated the term black carbon in ...

, radiative properties of

aerosol An aerosol is a suspension (chemistry), suspension of fine solid particles or liquid Drop (liquid), droplets in air or another gas. Aerosols can be generated from natural or Human impact on the environment, human causes. The term ''aerosol'' co ...

s, environmental visibility and their climatological impacts. It would contain a network of 16 aethalometers, 12 sky radiometers and 12 nephelometers.

References

External links