‘Monsoon deficit twice as many over surpluses in 30 years'

India has had just three excess monsoon years but six deficient years over a period of the last 30 years, which is worrying, according to Dr Y. E. A. Raj, Deputy Director-General, India Meteorological Department (IMD), Chennai.

The deficit years are 1982, 1986, 1987, 2002, 2004 and 2009, Dr Raj said here during a presentation at the brainstorming session on SouthWest monsoon hosted by the Thiruvananthapuram Met Centre.

There have been three surplus years in 1983, 1988 and 1994 – two in the 80s and just once in the whole of 1990s and 2000s until now.

After being put through the paces in the 1980s in this manner, the monsoon economy appeared to enter a period of relative stability marked out by a significant rainfall surplus in 1994.

No less had the economy entered the nervous 2000s than it was required to deal with headwinds with the monsoon tripping as early as two years into the new millennium. The monsoon failed the economy significantly in 2002, completing a double whammy just two more years down the line in 2004.

But the worst in as many as 38 years was reserved for year 2009 plotted largely by a monsoon-killer El Nino, with the deficit 21.8 per cent only narrowly missing the record of 23.9 per cent recorded in 1972.

‘EPOCHAL NORMAL'

This makes for a situation where we have had just three years of monsoon surpluses but double the number of significant deficit years even as the country is negotiating what is regarded an ‘epochal normal period,' Dr Raj said.

Epochal rainfall trends alternate from being excess to normal to below normal before hitting the surplus patch again, which is due next. These trends need to be subjected to closer research to pick patterns, existing or emerging, Dr Raj said.

“We now have the capability to generate and access all data from the ocean and atmosphere thanks to the constellation of satellites beaming real-time information and the huge number-crunching prowess of supercomputers, which help develop specific models,” he added.

DOPPLER RADARS

The capabilities and the modes of dissemination of information have significantly improved over the last 10 years in India as IMD witnessed large-scale modernisation of systems and process locally, including the installation of latest Doppler Weather Radars.

Thundercloud developments can now be traced on a real-time basis and along with it the moisture content and precipitable water and rainfall. According to Dr Raj, Kochi in Kerala would expectedly get its Doppler radar over the next six months.

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