Date:07/08/2004 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2004/08/07/stories/2004080702761900.htm

Back Monsoon revival cuts deficit by 5 pc

Vinson Kurian

Things are looking quite promising now. All available weather data suggest that the strong phase of the monsoon will sustain through the month of August.

Thiruvananthapuram , Aug. 6

REVIVAL of the southwest monsoon during the first week of August has erased as much as five per cent off the all-India deficit in cumulative rainfall obtaining at the end of a disastrous July.

Statistics available as on August 4 show that the deficit has narrowed down to 10 per cent all-India, according to Dr M. Rajeevan, Director, Forecasting, India Meteorological Department, Pune. Indications are that even this deficit would be made good in 10 days from now, Dr Rajeevan told Business Line.

"Things are looking quite promising now. All available weather data suggest that the strong phase of the monsoon will sustain through the month of August. I expect the wet spell to continue at least till August 15," Dr Rajeevan said.

A low-pressure system expected to form around August 8 in the Bay of Bengal would probably set the ball rolling for the next phase, he added.

Asked what he thought were the factors that might have led to the July fiasco, he said meteorologists still did not have any good explanation on why the monsoon behaved as it did during that crucial period. Apparently, weather systems passing north of India (the mid-latitudes) have created some problems. It was not as if low-pressure systems were not forming to the required specifications. It was just that they were not intensifying and moving into the northwest.

This had deprived the entire north and northwest - including Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, parts of north Gujarat and west Madhya Pradesh - precious rainfall in the vegetative phase of kharif crops.

The low-pressure systems were stopped in their tracks probably by impeding mid-latitude systems.

"But why this should have happened in the manner it did is something that we still ponder over. We might be able to trace it to some weird atmospheric pattern, which again would present us with a chicken and egg situation," Dr Rajeevan said.

Meanwhile, Dr S. K. Srivastav, Director-General, IMD, has been quoted as saying that the weather office maintained its `normal' monsoon forecast for the country. The rains in the west and the northwest will continue for some more time. The rest of the country is expected to get moderate rainfall during the remainder of the season that runs until September.

According to him, even the El Nino and the ocean temperature anomaly that is said to be evolving would not have any effect on the Indian monsoon.