Expect early, fairly strong onset of monsoon: Skymet

Anuj: I believe that you are sticking to your forecast of normal monsoon as against the prediction by the official Indian Meteorological (Met) Department? If you could tell us why?A: Yes, we are sticking to 102 percent of the long period average (LPA) with 45-49 percent of normal, 25 percent of above normal and there is a two or three percent chance of excess. We are sticking to that. The monsoon has made it to Andaman in advance, it should be in Kerala by May 28-29. I expect June to be above normal. I do not think there is going to be sowing risk this year as opposed to last year. So, so far it looks pretty decent. Ekta: It does not concern you that the Australian weather office or the Met Department has come out with the analysis that the El Nino is brewing in its early stages? And if you have factored that in, how do you expect the Indian monsoon to possibly to surpass that threat?A: The El Nino has been there since 2014. What it says is that there is a chance of El Nino sustaining itself through monsoon, which happened in 2014; that is why we had a drought. You see, there is a 60 percent chance that if there is an evolving El Nino, please listen to what I am saying - that is if the El Nino is in its evolution stage that there is a drought, if you are in a second year of the El Nino as opposed, basically the El Nino is continuing from the previous year, then the chance of a drought is actually lower. And that is statistical. If you just take droughts, let alone El Nino, there have been only three back-to-back droughts since 1873, 1905, 1965-1966 and there was a triple whammy of ’86-’87-’88 where we had back-to-back El Ninos in ’86 and ’87. Even if I do not take El Ninos, I just look at the dispersion of droughts, the probability of a back-to-back drought is very low. 2014 was a drought year. It was 88 percent of the LPA. So, that is one you are looking at.And second, all our programming, that is the computing, is pointing towards a normal monsoon. It has been pointing towards a normal monsoon since January and these are the same system of computing that we use which is in its ocean dynamics actually considering the warming of the Pacific Ocean. In 2014, when we said, it will be a drought, in 2013, when we said it would be normal and in 2012, when we said it will be below normal, which in all those instances it would be correct. And we have the capacity to look at 20 days, day-by-day with great conviction and I do not find June in any way tripping so far. So, my four-month-long forecast as well as our June forecast is still consistent from what we said on April 17 or what we said on March 15; that is 102 percent of the LPA.Anuj: What about the distribution because that is something that we hear all the time and the importance of that? A: Putting your finger on distribution right now is very hard. But, in a normal, every monsoon, even in a normal monsoon, there are areas which will have excess, there will be areas where there will be deficit. There is a pattern that in a normal monsoon, the monsoon seems to have dry pockets in the eastern part of the country, so, I would say somewhere between Bihar and North-east and maybe parts of Rayalaseema, but otherwise it should be decent all across.