Pune: The monsoon is likely to be better than earlier expected, according to the Met department, which revised its initial forecast on Tuesday, upgrading it marginally.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the revision to 98 per cent precipitation of the Long Period Average (LPA) was done because of reduced chances of occurrence of an El-Nino, a phenomenon associated with the heating of the Pacific waters.
IMD, on Tuesday, forecasted that seasonal rainfall in June to September is likely to be 96 per cent of Long Period Average (LPA) over North-West India, 100 per cent of LPA over Central India, 99 per cent of LPA over South Peninsula and 96 per cent of LPA over North-East India.
IMD had issued the first stage operational long range forecasts for the southwest monsoon season on April 18. In addition to the April assessment, forecasts for the monthly rainfall for July and August 2017 over the country as a whole, and seasonal rainfall forecast for the four broad geographical regions of India, North-West India, North-East India, Central India and South Peninsula were out on Tuesday.
For the month of July and August, rainfall over the country as a whole is likely to be 96 per cent of its LPA during July and 99 per cent of LPA during August.
Since mid-March 2017, warm ENSO neutral conditions are prevailing over the tropical pacific. The atmospheric conditions over the Pacific also reflect neutral ENSO conditions. The latest forecast from Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecasting System (MMCFS) indicates neutral ENSO conditions are likely till end of this year.
This is in line with the forecasts from some of the global climate centres. However, outlook from other global climate centres also indicates 60 per cent chances of a weak El Niño conditions during the second half of 2017.
In addition to the ENSO conditions over Pacific, other factors such as the Indian Ocean sea surface temperatures (SSTs) also influence monsoon rainfall. At present, neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions are prevailing over Indian Ocean. The latest forecast indicates weak positive IOD conditions are likely to develop during the monsoon season.
