‘El Nino hit Aug rains, will remain strong till Dec’

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : The El Nino phenomenon that developed in July has remained weak, but has affected rainfall in August due to changes in atmospheric conditions, India Meteorological Department (IMD) director-general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said, adding it will turn moderate in September and remain strong till December. Mohapatra said below-normal rainfall is expected in the rest of August as well. In a wide-ranging interview, the IMD chief spoke of rainfall distribution and deficiency, forecast errors and extreme weather events.

Edited excerpts: We are not expecting much rain in the remaining period of August. It will be below-normal precipitation. While presenting the monthly forecast for August, we said it could be 92% long period average when asked, but we do not predict the actual value.

Rain in August became below normal as predicted at the beginning of the month, but it became extremely below normal, that is above 30% now. Monsoon has been good and balanced this year as far as distribution is concerned. It gave good rainfall over North-West India in June and July as well as in August in some states i.e.

Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Peninsular region also got good rain in July. In the case of East and North-East India, they did not get adequate rainfall in June and July, and it was highly deficient.

The deficiency went up to 45-50% in East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, but rainfall picked up in these regions in August and now it is only 25% deficient. Therefore, I’d say it is balanced partially. If you look at subdivision-wise, 25 of total 36 got normal or above-normal rainfall.