Met Department Says India Will Have Normal Monsoon, Disagrees With Skymet: Report

Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has disagreed with the private weather forecaster Skymet and said that India will have normal monsoon rains this year with a long-period average (LPA) of 96 per cent between June and September.

In a media briefing, M Ravindran, secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, said that IMD expects monsoon 2023 to be normal with a rainfall of 83.5 centimetres, newspaper Business Standard reported.

The development came a day after Skymet predicted “below normal” monsoon with LPA of 94 per cent.

India is likely to experience below-normal monsoon rainfall this year, with a 20 per cent chance of drought due to the end of La Nina conditions and the potential for El Nino to take hold, private forecasting agency Skymet Weather said on Monday. 
El Nino, which is the warming of the waters in the Pacific Ocean near South America, is associated with weakening of monsoon winds and less rainfall in India.

Skymet expects the monsoon rainfall to be around 94 per cent of the long-period average (LPA) of 868.6 mm for the four-month period from June to September. The private forecaster also predicted that the northern and central parts of the country may see a rain deficit, with Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra expected to witness inadequate rains during the core monsoon months of July and August.

Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the agricultural bowl of north India, are likely to observe less-than-normal rains during the second half of the season. In a statement, Skymet said: "20 per cent chance of drought (seasonal rainfall that is less than 90 per cent of LPA)."

It said there is no chance of excess rain (seasonal rainfall more than 110 per cent of the LPA), a 15-per cent chance of above normal rain (between 105 per cent and 110 per cent), 25-per cent chance of normal rain (between 96 per cent and 104 per cent) and 40 per cent chance of below normal precipitation.

Meanwhile, according to the Business Standard report IMD said that region-wise normal rains are expected over peninsular India, adjoining East Central India, East India, North East India and North West India. It added that below-normal conditions might prevail over some parts of North West India, parts of West Central India and North East India.