GNSS Network of IMD and its Applications

Abstract

India Meteorological Department (IMD) is the nodal agency of Government of India for deploying weather instruments, collection of meteorological data, utilization in daily operational work of weather forecasting and to provide all weather related services to the people of this country and neighborhood and sharing of data with various research institutes all over the world. Improving the quality of operational services is one of the main and important objectives of the Meteorological Department. To meet this requirement, the Department is constantly implementing and upgrading the observational technology and inducting new technology to the maximum possible extent as and when required. IMD has a network of 25 Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ground based stations for measurement of Integrated Precipitable Water Vapour (IPWV) in near real time. This real time IPWV data along with the pressure, temperature and humidity point station data almost all GNSS locations are available for public domain at every 15 minute intervals. In this work the authors presented the brief overview of the utilization of Indian GNSS Network data in various meteorological applications and found very useful input for forecasting the thunder, heavy rainfall and monsoon activities with sufficient lead time from hours to days.