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The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) is the latest global forecast agency to join the watch for a possible return of La Nina conditions to equatorial east Pacific.
Tokyo-based Research Institute for Global Change and the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services are two others already on the list.
IMD BETS
India Meteorological Department (IMD) has bet its forecast of ‘better than forecast' rains on the Pacific relapsing to La Nina conditions.
La Nina is the reverse of monsoon-killer El Nino, and represents cooling of the east Pacific, confining convection and storminess to the west.
This is a condition that has been known to aid a concurrent Indian monsoon. But no direct cause-effect connection' between El Nino/La Nina has been proved.
Monsoon watchers suspect a La Nina pattern in the way heavy rains are biased to the western half of the country – the west coast, adjoining central India and the northwest.
The pattern is expected to continue during the first half of September, if global model forecasts are any indication.
‘NEUTRAL' FOR NOW
The Australian Bureau said in its latest update that ‘neutral' conditions persist in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, though a return to La Nina towards the end of 2011 cannot be ruled out.
As of now, all indicators remain well short of the strong La Nina evident at the same time last year.
While no models suggest El Nino conditions are likely, half of the models predict further cooling over the coming season and into the southern summer.
It's worth noting that since 1900, about half of all La Nina events re-emerged in the second year, the bureau aid.
Viewed in this context, further cooling of the central Pacific Ocean would further increase the chance of a La Nina event at the end of 2011.
WEATHER WARNING
Meanwhile, an IMD weather warning said that isolated heavy rainfall would occur over Orissa on Saturday.
But Konkan, Goa, coastal Karnataka, Kerala, west Madhya Pradesh and east Rajasthan would likely witness heavy rains on Saturday and Sunday.
Rainfall activity may increase over the plains of north-west India from Sunday.
An extended outlook valid until Wednesday said that fairly widespread rainfall activity would continue over central and adjoining east India and along the west coast.
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