The Hindu Business Line : `Near neutral El Nino favours good monsoon'

THE Director-General of the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Dr S.K Srivastav, said the main basis for expecting a good monsoon this year was the absence of any adverse `El Nino' effect. The latter refers to a warming up of the eastern Pacific Ocean surface temperatures that are seen to cause disruptions in weather patterns worldwide, bringing extreme flooding in some parts and drought conditions in others, including India.

"At present, El Nino conditions over the equatorial Pacific Ocean suggest near neutral conditions. It is being predicted that these conditions would prevail during the south-west monsoon season (June-September) as well," he told presspersons here.

This is the second year in which the IMD is coming out with its long-range monsoon forecast by mid-April, as against the earlier practice of releasing it on May 25. The revised forecast schedule, based on a new 8-parameter `power regression and probabilistic model' developed by IMD, is said to be more useful, as it provides sufficient lead time for the farming community to take informed sowing decisions.

Dr Srivastav said the exact date on which the monsoon would hit the Kerala coast will be known by the second week of May. The IMD will, then, also release forecasts for the three homogenous meteorological regions — North-West India, North East India and the Peninsula.

"We are also working on dividing the Peninsula into two (North and South) and coming out with separate forecasts for these as well. This has been partly prompted by the fact that the southern part of the country received very little rains during the last two monsoons," he noted.

South interior Karnataka, North interior Karnataka and Kerala, in particular, received deficient rains in both the 2002 and 2003 monsoon years. "But this time, we expect a turnaround because the probability for three consecutive deficient years in these areas (unlike in Rajasthan and Gujarat) has been found to be zero," Dr Srivastav added.