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Updated Japanese model forecasts have retained a ‘flop-show’ watch for summer rains here even as the southwest monsoon inched closer to Kerala coast.
“Our Sintex-F model continues to predict a negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) during this summer and fall.
“I am afraid this is not good news for the India,” Dr Swadhin Behera at the Tokyo-based Research Institute for Global Change (RIGC) wrote to Business Line on Sunday.
JULY RAINS
The RIGC specifically mentioned about the June-July-August phase, during when the rains are likely to fail the kharif crops. Most parts of the country could end in the red.
Dr Behera is team leader, Low-altitude climate prediction research under the Climate variation predictability and applicability research programme at RIGC.
The RIGC team had been warning about a ‘cool summer’ for India this year (since proved true) followed by a below-normal monsoon right from February.
Its outlook is predicated on the expected evolution of a negative IOD, which mimics El Nino-La Nina pattern nearer home in the Indian Ocean.
And for this very reason, the IOD phenomenon has a more direct and immediate impact on the Indian monsoon.
WARM SEAS
During a negative phase, sea-surface temperatures get warmer to the east Indian Ocean relative to the west, which robs mainland of convection and moisture.
Exactly reverse is the case of a positive IOD when the west Indian ocean warms up, and aids the monsoon current approaching the Kerala coast.
The RIGC update came on a day when India Meteorological Department (IMD) assessed conditions as favourable for advance of monsoon into nearby seas to the southwest.
NEUTRAL PACIFIC
The IMD gave a two-day window for the current to enter parts of southeast Arabian Sea and more parts of the Maldives and the Comorin areas.
These are within earshot of the southwest coast of Kerala. On the Bay of Bengal side, entire north Andaman Sea and parts of south and central Bay would also get covered in the process.
Meanwhile, the RIGC also said that the condition in the tropical Pacific has almost returned to a neutral state.
The neutral state, which signifies neither El Nino nor La Nina, will continue to hold at least until the end of this year.
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