Ahmedabad, 4 July, 2014

Skymet Weather Services Private Limited, India’s leading weather anayltics firm has updated its forecast in which it has predicted that there could be an 80 per cent chance of drought in North West India and 75 per cent chance of drought in Central India. The risk of drought in South India is 50%.

Skymet believes that there is 60% chance of drought.

According to Skymet’s calculations(assuming an error margin of +/-4%), the following is monsoon’s risk spread over the four month period of JJAS(June-July-August-September):
-LPA = Long Period Average
-60% chance of drought(seasonal rainfall less than 90% of LPA)
-30% chance of below normal(seasonal rainfall that is between 90 to 95% of LPA)
-10% chance of normal(seasonal rainfall that is between 96 to 104% of LPA)
-0% chance of above normal(seasonal rainfall that is between 105 to 110% of LPA)
-0% chance of excess(seasonal rainfall that is more than 110% LPA).
-LPA = 89 cm for the four month period from June to September.

According to Jatin Singh, CEO, Skymet, “The weakness in the monsoon could possibly be attributed to El Nino.” The El Nino is a phenomenon wherein the central and east Pacific ocean warms in turn weakening the monsoon. El Nino has commenced the weakening of easterly winds and increasing ocean heat content. Central and east equatorial Pacific ocean temperatures are already warmer by more than 0.5 C.

In terms of geographical risk, Skymet suggsts that East and North East India will have the least fluctuation with normal rainfall through the JAS(July, August, September) period. There seems to be weakness in majority of subdivisions of North West India(Gujarat, Saurashtra, Kutch, Punjab, Rajasthan and Haryana), West Central India (East MP, West MP, Marathwada, Vidarbha, Madhya Maharashtra, North Interior Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana) and South India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Rayalseema) during the season.