 "Monsoon")
Though early days, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday said El Niño might not influence Indian monsoon in a big way in the 2024 season.
IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said the current weather models were showing that El Niño might weaken from April onwards and turn into ‘neutral’, though it is difficult to predict such conditions beyond six months with accuracy.
El Niño, the warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean near South America, are associated with weaker monsoon winds and drier conditions in India.
“Currently, moderate El Niño conditions are prevailing over the Equatorial Pacific Ocean and positive Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions are prevailing over the Indian Ocean. The latest global model forecasts indicate that these El Niño conditions are likely to continue during the upcoming season and positive IOD conditions are likely to weaken during the upcoming months,” Mohapatra said at a virtual press conference.
In 2023, India experienced ‘below normal’ rains and an abnormally dry August largely due to El Niño conditions though positive IOD saved some of the blushes.
As a result of the weaker-than-expected monsoon, production of rice, the biggest cereal grown during the kharif season, is expected to drop by 3.79 per cent in 2023-24 season to 106.31 million tonnes (mt) as compared to the 110.5 (mt) in 2022-23, according to the first advanced estimate released few weeks back.
Not only rice, production of all other major kharif crops this year could see a dip with moong, urad, soybean, and sugarcane leading the pack.
For November, the IMD said predicted above-normal minimum temperatures were expected in most parts of India, barring some areas in the northwest and west-central regions, due to a strengthening El Niño conditions.
Mohapatra said rainfall over the country as a whole in November was most likely to be normal – 77-123 per cent of the long-period average.
Above-normal rainfall is likely over some areas of the southernmost parts of peninsular India, most parts of northwest India, and many parts of east-central, east and northeast India, he said.
Few days back, the World Bank in its Global Commodity Markets Outlook also said that El Nino is expected to weaken in the spring of 2024 with neutral conditions of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) weather event becoming the most likely category from May to July 2024.
