New Delhi: India looks likely to receive above average monsoon rainfall as concern over the El Nino weather condition has eased in the past few weeks, the chief of the weather office said on Tuesday, raising prospects of higher farm and economic growth.
The state-run India meteorological department (IMD) on April 18 forecast this year’s monsoon rains at 96 per cent of a 50-year average of 89 cm.
“Things have changed for good since then,” K.J. Ramesh, director general of IMD said.
The monsoon delivers about 70 per cent of India’s annual rainfall, critical for growing crops such as rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybeans because nearly half of the country’s farmland lacks irrigation.
“We assessed 96 per cent based on the climatological conditions up to March. Now, conditions are becoming favourable for an improvement over our April 18 estimate,” Mr Ramesh said.
India defines average, or normal, rainfall as between 96 and 104 per cent of the 50-year average.
Citing some climatological parameters, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology recently said there were signs of concerns easing over El Nino.
El Niño, a warming of ocean surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years and was linked to crop damage, fires and flash floods, faded in 2016.
Mr Ramesh said the Indian Ocean Dipole, or IOD phenomenon, which counters an El Nino weather event, looks favourable for monsoon rains this year.
Jettisoning a statistical method introduced under British colonial rule in the 1920s, the IMD has for the first time relied on the so-called dynamic model to improve the accuracy of one of the world’s most vital weather forecasts. The new system is based on a US model tweaked for India.
