The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the Application Laboratory at Jamstec, the Japanese national forecaster, have joined a list of peers who favour the outlook for above-normal summer for India during this summer.

The Busan, South Korea-based APEC Climate Centre, International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University, and the UK Met Office have already made public their outlook for India along these lines.

As stated already, these forecasts are based on the assessment of a host of atmospheric and meteorological parameters as perceived in January and are subject to change in monthly updates which follow. Among the five, the Japanese forecaster stands out for taking a grim view of the excess summer showers in terms of its likely impact on the South-West monsoon that begins in June.

Mixed views

Excess showers could interfere with the orderly heating of the land and prevent the temperature and pressure gradient from establishing to ideal specifications. The monsoon rides them to travel from the Kerala coast towards upcountry.

But the rest four do not see cooling to become entrenched to a level where monsoon prospects get impacted. All of them do support the above normal summer shower outlook though confined mostly to the peninsula. They seem to argue that heating of the ‘core region’ of North-West India and adjoining Pakistan would largely proceed unhindered, if not occasionally exceeding the normal in parts of the region during April-May-June.

This would be sufficient to set up the ‘heat low’ over land (Rajasthan and neighbourhood) as heated up air rises lowering the pressure in the region. This is considered a major monsoon facilitator.

Month-wise forecast

In January-based forecast outlook, the European Centre sees the possibility of normal summer showers for most of the country during February-March-April. They would be above normal for parts of Central India and East India.

In March-April-May, above normal rain is indicated for the West Coast, most of peninsular India and West Maharashtra, West Madhya Pradesh and North Gujarat. It would be normal for rest of the country.

April-May-June may deliver normal showers for most parts with excess precipitation for a narrow corridor linking Delhi with West Uttar Pradesh, Central Madhya Pradesh, East Maharashtra, Telangana, Rayalaseema, and Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

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