India in April had forecast monsoon rains at 93 per cent of the average. Rainfall of less than 90 percent is considered to be a drought year. India in April had forecast monsoon rains at 93 per cent of the average. Rainfall of less than 90 percent is considered to be a drought year.

The bad has just got worse. The Met department said on Tuesday that the country was likely to get only 88 per cent of the normal rainfall this monsoon season, down from the 93 per cent forecast it had made a month earlier.

In its second long-range forecast, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) also released the likely monthly and regional distribution of rainfall during the four-month season (June-September). Rainfall is likely to be well below normal in every region, with northwest India, including Delhi, likely to get only 85 per cent of the normal rainfall.

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The onset of monsoon — normally June 1 — in Kerala has already been delayed. The onset, which signals the arrival of monsoon on the Indian mainland, is now expected to happen on June 5.

The latest announcement, curiously made public during trading hours by Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan, had the expected effect on the markets. The Bombay Stock Exchange, which was already witnessing a major fall following RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan’s cautious monetary policy announcements in the morning, tanked further, losing almost 300 points in the afternoon session.

The IMD statement said there was now a 66 per cent chance that the rainfall would remain “deficient” (below 90 per cent), and only a seven per cent chance that it would be “normal” (96-104 per cent of the long-period average). In its forecast in April, the IMD had predicted a 28 per cent chance of a “normal” monsoon.

The IMD attributed the downgrade in its forecast to the strengthening of El Nino system in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. “The latest forecast from IMD-IITM (Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune) coupled model indicates El Nino conditions are likely to strengthen further and reach moderate strength during the monsoon season. There is about 90 per cent probability of El Nino conditions to continue during the southwest monsoon season,” the IMD statement said.

D Sivananda Pai, head of the Long Range Forecasting division at IMD, said the assessment of the El Nino was much better now as compared to when the first forecast was made in April. El Nino describes a condition in which ocean temperatures in equatorial Pacific regions, off the western coast of South America, become unusually warm. El Nino is known to have an impact on Indian monsoon, besides affecting a lot of other weather events worldwide. There is a strong co-relation between an El Nino event and a poor monsoon.

The monsoon winds, after having reached the Andaman Islands on May 16, ahead of schedule, are stationed south of the Indian mainland for over a week now. An anti-cyclone system in the Arabian Sea is said to be making it difficult for the winds to travel northwards. As a result, the rainfall outlook for June is not very bright.

“June is likely to get less rainfall. As of now, our models indicate that the onset will happen on June 5 and there will be four or five days of good rainfall activity. After that, it is expected to weaken, resulting in a period of lull for about four five days before gaining in strength again,” Pai said.

Ajit Tyagi, former director general of IMD, said the revised forecast was along expected lines. “What is most crucial now for the agriculture sector is how monsoon behaves in July and August. If there is reasonably good rainfall in these two months, and it is evenly distributed both in area and in time, then there would not be too much to worry about on the agriculture side,” he said.

According to the latest forecast, there is likely to be 92 per cent rainfall in July and 90 per cent in August. “It is clear that it cannot be business as usual. People in the government have to react proactively to manage the situation and reduce the impact of a poor monsoon that looks imminent now,” said Tyagi.

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