El Nino confirmed over Pacific

Skymet still feels rain would be normal

The dreaded El Nino weather phenomenon, which often does not have a positive impact on the southwest monsoon in India, has well and truly set. It could continue all through the four-month southwest monsoon that starts in June, forecasts done by a clutch of global weather agencies showed on Tuesday.

Till last week, most global and Indian weather forecasting agencies had predicted 70-80 per cent chance of El Nino occurring this year. But after Tuesday’s prediction, it has been fairly established that the weather phenomenon will hit during India’s summer months of June to September.

 

El Nino, the Spanish word for boy child (because of its tendency to arrive around Christmas), is an abnormal warming of the waters in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean every three to five years. It can last up to 18 months. It has been responsible for below-normal monsoon four times in the last decade. But there have been exceptions.

“The tropical Pacific is in the early stages of El Niño. Based upon model outlooks and current observations, the tracker has been raised to El Niño status,” the Australian Weather Bureau said on Tuesday.

Japan Meteorological Agency, too, said El Nino arrived in spring and is likely to continue into autumn, which was also endorsed by the Australian Weather Office.

However, domestic private weather forecasting agency, Skymet, which had predicted a normal monsoon in 2015 at 102 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) stayed adamant. The forecast has been with a model error of plus and minus five per cent. “We are not going to revise or update or forecast and are fairly confident that India would have a good monsoon this year,” Jatin Singh, chief executive of Skymet Weather, told Business Standard.

He said even if there is any revision around June that would be only upwards. “The pre-monsoon showers have started and we are fairly sure that monsoon would arrive on time in India,” Singh said.

The state-run, India Meteorological Department (IMD) had last month in its first forecast for 2015 southwest monsoon said that the rains were expected to be below normal at 93 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA) because of the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The forecast is with a model error of plus and minus 5 per cent. LPA is the average rainfall that the country received between 1951 and 2000 estimated to be 89 cm.

If true, this would be the second consecutive year when southwest monsoon will be below normal.

In 2014, the rains were around 12 per cent below normal, which lowered kharif foodgrain production by around 9 million tonnes as compared to the previous year.  

In 2015, north and Central India is expected to get less than normal rain, while it might be normal in peninsular India, IMD said.  

“Crops like soybean and cotton are under El Nino watch for being sown mainly in rainfed conditions,” Reuters said quoting K K Singh, the head of agricultural meteorology division of the Indian weather office.