El Niño threat prompts IMD to lower monsoon forecast

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New Delhi: This year’s southwest monsoon will deliver just 90% of normal rainfall as the India Meteorological Department (IMD) cuts its forecast.

Therefore, the monsoon will fall within the ‘below normal’ category and is a further reduction in its April prediction, which placed the rainfall at 92% of the Long Period Average (LPA). The average for the southwest monsoon is 96% of the LPA.

According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the revised forecast is attributed to concerns over increasing El Niño conditions being developed in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, which influences the Indian subcontinent through reduced rainfall, which will, in turn, influence the productivity of agriculture and the country’s rural incomes.

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Dr M Ravichandran, Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary, said that “average monsoon rainfall during the southwest monsoon season this year is likely to be around 90% of the LPA, which is below normal, with a model error of plus or minus four per cent.”

A lack of adequate rainfall could lead to serious concerns within the country’s farming sector, and this will put further pressure on reservoirs, recharge rates of groundwater tables, and sowing conditions over the whole country, as weather experts continue to monitor the changing atmospheric conditions over both the Indian and Pacific oceans.

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