The El Nino, which often disrupts global weather patterns, including the southwest monsoon, is set to be neutralised by a local phenomenon in the Indian Ocean, which can lead to good rainfall in the second half of the monsoon season.
With sea surface temperatures as well as atmospheric conditions over equatorial Pacific Ocean indicating neutral to borderline El Nino conditions, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday predicted normal monsoon for the second half (August and September) of the four-month rainfall season.
This is good news for India, where two-thirds of the population resides in rural areas and half the agricultural area of the country depends entirely on rainfall for water. In April, the IMD had made the forecast of a normal monsoon.
“El Nino phenomenon is getting weak and IOD is moving from neutral to positive. the Pacific Ocean had warmed up near the El Nino levels, but this has now reversed. This will help rains in the country. The monsoon would be near normal,” the IMD said. El Nino refers to the warming of the equatorial Pacific, which weakens the flow of wind and consequently the monsoon system.
Mritunjay Mohapatra, Director General of IMD, said the next two weeks are expected to bring good rainfall due to formation of a low pressure area in the north Bay of Bengal.
The IMD forecast suggests that the rainfall during second half of the monsoon season most likely to be normal (94 -106 per cent of LPA) with a probability of 45 per cent. The rainfall in August is likely to be 99 per cent of the LPA with an error margin of plus or minus 9 per cent.
The all India rainfall was recorded to be 418.7 mm against the normal of 461.3 mm, a deficiency of 9 percent till August 1.
The latest forecasts from both Monsoon Mission Coupled Dynamical Forecast System (MMCFS) and other global models indicate that these conditions are likely to continue during the remaining part of the monsoon season.
The outlook comes on the back an unexpectedly good July that produced around 4 per cent more rain than what is normal for the month, which is considered the rainiest of the four monsoon months.
This had helped reduce the rain deficit from a high of 33 per cent at June-end to single digits (9 per cent) after July saw the monsoon revive and scale up to a peak over Central, West, and North-West India.
