South-West Monsoon Gathering Strength Despite El Nino Effect

An unfavourable El Nino notwithstanding, the south-west monsoon current has become stronger and is advancing further to cover more areas in the southern as well as north-eastern parts of the country.

Southern states, especially Kerala, which have so far not received adequate precipitation because of weak monsoon system, are likely to get more rains in the next few days. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the monsoon current in the south is now in a good shape although its further advance is rather slow. It has, however, covered the entire Karnataka, southern Konkan, Rayalseema, parts of Telengana and parts of coastal Andhra Pradesh, besides Kerala.

 

The north-eastern region, where the monsoon had arrived simultaneously with Kerala on June 9, has in any case been having normal showers as the monsoon current in this sector has been strong enough right from the beginning. The northern limit of the monsoon is currently passing through Gangtok in Sikkim. Experts in the IMD told the Business Standard that latest data about El Nino was not yet available from the pacific ocean observatories. El Nino essentially represents the phenomenon of warming of the equatorial waters in the central and eastern areas of the Pacific Ocean. This data was expected to arrive by June 12, but had not reached here till Friday evening.

In the absence of the latest data, it is not possible to quantify the impact of El Nino on the performance of the monsoon, an IMD spokesman said. He said El Nino was only one of the 16 parameters that influence the monsoon. Its impact has to be studied along with that of the 15 other parameters. This year, nine of the 16 parameters are favourable for a normal monsoon. But, El Nino is important because it has strong concurrent impact on the progress of the monsoon rains.

Indeed, the earths land-ocean-atmosphere system starts its preparatory work for the south-west monsoon much ahead of its actual occurrence. The parameters that determine the shape of the coming monsoon start surfacing one by one and become significant in their own time frames as a collective and cumulative phenomenon. This monsoon build-up process with complex forcing, which have some mutuality about them, would appear to start from the preceding winter months and the full picture unfolds itself by the end of May when the IMD prepares its final monsoon forecast.