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Skymet Weather Services

Overview

Skymet Weather Services is an Indian private weather forecasting and agri-risk solutions company. Headquartered in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, it operates as one of the largest private sector providers of weather information in India, working in areas such as monsoon forecasting, agricultural advisories, weather risk management, and crop yield estimation.

Key facts

Name Skymet Weather Services
Type Private company
Industry Weather forecasting, agri-meteorology, risk management
Country India
Headquarters Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Founder Jatin Singh

Background

Skymet was founded by Jatin Singh as a private weather services venture in India, a sector traditionally dominated by the government-run India Meteorological Department. The company set out to provide independent weather forecasts and customised advisories for media, agriculture, insurance, energy, and infrastructure clients.

Over time, Skymet built out its own observational infrastructure, including a network of automatic weather stations and rain gauges deployed across various Indian states. This network is used to generate hyper-local forecasts and to support services such as crop monitoring, yield estimation, and weather-indexed insurance.

Areas of work

  • Weather forecasting: Short-range, medium-range and seasonal forecasts, including an annual pre-season forecast for the southwest monsoon.
  • Agri-services: Crop health monitoring, yield estimation and farm-level advisories for agribusinesses and government agencies.
  • Risk management: Inputs for weather-based crop insurance schemes and parametric insurance products.
  • Media and public information: Forecasts and weather updates supplied to newspapers, television channels and digital platforms.
  • Observation network: Operation of automatic weather stations and rain-gauge networks across India.

Monsoon forecasts

Skymet is notable for issuing its own annual forecast for the Indian southwest monsoon, separate from the official forecast released by the India Meteorological Department. These forecasts, which assess the likelihood of a normal, above-normal, below-normal or deficient monsoon, are widely tracked by farmers, traders and policymakers because of the monsoon's central role in Indian agriculture and the wider economy.

Significance

As an early entrant in India's private weather services market, Skymet has played a role in expanding the availability of localised weather data and in supporting the use of such data in agriculture and insurance. Its parallel monsoon forecasts and agri-analytics products are often cited in Indian business and agricultural reporting alongside official IMD outlooks.

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