The India Meteorological Department (IMD) will issue the first stage of its monsoon long-range forecast on Wednesday, the normal mid-April timeline for the eagerly-awaited first outlook from the country’s national forecaster.

Private forecaster Skymet Weather had declared that it would skip this year’s forecast for ‘strategic reasons’ and would come back ‘better equipped’ for the next (2021) season.

The 2020 season follows an unexpected super bumper monsoon of the previous year that delivered rainfall of 110 per cent above the long-period average (LPA). It was powered by one of the strongest positive phases of the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) ever recorded.

The IOD was not just too strong but had also surprised most models several notches on the upside, one reason cited by Skymet why it wants to have a re-look at all the tele-connections that drive the Indian monsoon.

Meanwhile, the US-based Weather Company, an IBM Business, has said the 2020 monsoon could end up above normal (105 per cent of the LPA) based on current benign conditions in the Equatorial Pacific with a possibility of graduating into a monsoon-friendly La Nina mid-way into the season.

Latest model runs by global agencies tend to give more substance to the forecast of brewing La Nina. In this context, what the IMD would have to say on Wednesday would be heard with rapt attention.

The country has had a rollicking pre-monsoon season till date (March 1 to April 14) with a surplus rainfall of 16 per cent, though there are a few pockets of deficits.

These include Lakshadweep (-45 per cent); Tamil Nadu and Puducherry (-44 per cent); Saurashtra & Kutch (-70 per cent); and a few North-Eastern States.

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