India likely to get more rain |
India is likely to get more rain, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said. In a second update, the IMD said rainfall would be `normal` and likely to be 98% of the Long Period Average. This is 2% more than the 96%, or `near normal` rains it forecast in April. The IMD`s optimism is largely premised on expectations that a strong El Nino was earlier expected to surface in the latter half of the monsoon. IMD also said that rains in July and August, the most important monsoon months for kharif crops, would be 96% and 99% respectively, which is normal for those months. The IMD expects a balanced geographical distribution. The season rainfall is likely to be 96% of the historical average North-West India, 100% of long period average (LPA) over Central India, 99% of LPA over South Peninsula, and 96% of LPA over Northeast India with a model error of ± 8 %. The El Nino — characterised by surface waters of the equatorial Pacific warming up more than half a degree — is known to dry up monsoon rains every six out of 10 years. This year, international weather models as well as the IMD`s own dynamical global climate forecasting system model indicated that El Nino conditions might set in during the “latter part of the monsoon.”
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