Marginal rain revival this week may not offset monsoon deficit: Skymet

livemint.com:

NEW DELHI : Rainfall is expected to make a marginal recovery this week, but it may not be enough to offset August’s 40% deficit in regional rains, private weather forecaster Skymet said. Barring Northwest India, the remaining three regions are facing rainfall deficiency as El Nino gathers strength and Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) climate pattern index remains neutral. Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) is seen to contribute to El Nino as it gains strength in the coming weeks.

MJO, a global scale feature of the tropical atmosphere, is also fluctuating in the tropical weather on weekly to monthly time scale. MJO effects are most evident over the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific Ocean. While precipitation remains 20% less than the benchmark long period average (LPA) in East and Northeast India, the South peninsula and central India have seen 13% and 2% below normal rains since the beginning of the monsoon season in June.

With this the rainfall across the country stands at 579.3 mm, 7% lower than what is normal for this period. “Seasonal rainfall has succumbed to the impact of El Nino in the core monsoon month of August... The month of August has witnessed an unprecedented shortfall of nearly 40% rainfall so far.

Marginal recovery is likely in the 3rd week but still not adequate to offset regional deficiencies," Skymet said in its latest bulletin on El Nino. El Nino has significant impact on global weather. Equatorial sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in the Pacific transitioned from below average to above average in January this year and since March, positive SST anomalies in the eastern Pacific Ocean expanded westward.