454 REPORT—1904. 
expressed as probabilities, and, whenever desirable, an estimate of the value of each 
probability be given. 
The Government of India desires to have these seasonal forecasts, and has 
ordered its Meteorological Department to furnish them. The Government 
encourages the work, provides the additional means required by the Department 
for its proper performance, and issues the forecasts only to those who will use 
them as probabilities for practical guidance. ’ 
The importance of the work of seasonal forecasting in India may be judged 
from the following remarks :— 
India is almost exclusively an agricultural country, with a population of 
nearly 300 millions. The material prosperity of practically the whole people is 
determined by the amount and distribution of the periodic rains. The variations 
in the amount and period of the rains are occasionally so great as to produce the 
most disastrous results in the staple crops over large areas. In 1899, for example, 
the crops failed more or less completely over an area several times the extent of 
England. 
“There is probably no country where the meteorological problems, of which 
these rainfall variations form one feature, are of greater interest or more practical 
importance. The daily weather and rainfall reports are studied during the greater 
part of the year with the closest attention by the officials, from the Viceroy 
downwards. 
The Government is hence keenly interested in meteorological observation and 
investigation, and is most anxious to improve its meteorological service and utilise 
it for practical purposes, of which seasonal forecasting is one of the most 
important. To give two examples. A reassuring forecast at a critical period, 
followed by its realisation, might be of the greatest value to the agricultural 
population of a large province, as well as to the local and Imperial Governments. 
Again, a statement or forecast the probability of which was, say, at least 10 to 1 
that the rains would fail more or less completely during a season over a large 
area might enable the Government to carry out early prudential measures for relief 
in the most economical and effective manner with the means at its disposal, The 
preparation and issue of seasonal forecasts will hence, I am confident, be in the 
future, as in the past, one of the most important duties of the Indian Meteoro- 
logical Department. 
There are several points in connection with weather forecasting in India 
which it is desirable should be borne in mind. ‘The first is that weather in 
India is distinguished rather by the massiveness, intensity, and persistence of 
abnormal features than by the frequency and rapid succession of important 
weather changes. It is chiefly on this account that daily weather forecasts, even 
if they could be communicated with the necessary rapidity, are of no value to the 
Indian agricultural population. Also, the empirical knowledge of the significance 
of the important variations as factors determining or indicating future weather 
accumulates much more slowly than in Europe, and it is hence doubly important 
that in India the empirical knowledge derived from very limited experience should 
be, so far as possible, regulated and controlled by theory and scientific knowledge. 
It shonld also be remembered that there are large differences between the 
meteorology of tropical and temperate regions, and also between the relation of 
crops to weather in India and England. ‘The instincts, habits, beliefs, education 
of the body of the people in England and India also differ very widely. Hence 
the possibilities of the practical applications of meteorological science in India 
cannot be judged from the European standard, and may from that standpoint be 
unique. 
The possibilities of usefulness of the work of seasonal or long-period forecasting 
in India are almost unlimited. To be acceptable and useful to the agricultural 
population of areas liable to drought they should be fairly accurate with respect 
to the dates of commencement and termination of the periodic rains, their general 
character, and the probable occurrence of prolonged breaks likely to be injurious 
to the chief food crops. If the forecasts were found to be fairly reliable in these 
respects, it is quite certain that the agricultural population would value them and 
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