IMD releases long range forecast for the 2014 monsoon

New Delhi, 25 April 2014

The India Meteorological Department and Earth System Science Organization (ESSO) under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has today released the Long Range Forecast for the 2014 Southwest Monsoon Season Rainfall.

Accordingly, The experimental ensemble forecast based on IMD SFM indicates that the rainfall during the 2014 monsoon season (June to September) averaged over the country as a whole is likely to be 88% ± 5% of long period average (LPA).

Summary of the ESSO-IMD’s Operational long range Forecast for the 2014 Southwest monsoon rainfall is as under:

(a) Quantitatively, the monsoon seasonal rainfall is likely to be 95% of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of ± 5%. The LPA of the season rainfall over the country as a whole for the period 1951-2000 is 89 cm.

(b) The 5 category probability forecasts for the Seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole is given below:

ESSO-IMD will issue the update forecasts in June, 2014 as a part of the second stage forecast. Along with the update forecast, separate forecasts for the monthly (July and August) rainfall over the country as a whole and seasonal (June-September) rainfall over the four geographical regions of India will also be issued.