In ‘Preliminary Monsoon Forecast Guidance for 2024’, Skymet expects the upcoming monsoon to be ‘normal’. This could be one of the decent normal monsoon years making a sturdy start and finishing around the midway mark of the normal range, the range of normal rainfall being 96-104% of LPA (868.6mm).
A positive IOD event has just ended. This breakup is followed by a neutral ‘Dipole Mode Index’ in the Indian Ocean. Fresh IOD events are typically unable to form till April. The forthcoming IOD event may as well be ‘positive neutral’. It means that the IOD may render formative support to the southwest monsoon or at best, will not corrupt the season’s rainfall.
According to Jatin Singh, Managing Director Skymet, “ The monsoon disrupting weather pattern El Nino, which dragged monsoon 2023 to ‘below normal’ is expected to get softened. The impending cooling of the ocean waters may portend ‘neutral’ conditions before the arrival of the monsoon. Also, the monsoon supporting La Nina, triggered by the cooling of the Pacific Ocean is likely to evolve during the latter half of the season. Return of ENSO neutral to start with and imminent La Nina later may presage competent monsoon 2024”.
El Nino forecast is available for the next nine months. However, model accuracy for the lead times greater than four months is generally low at this time. Even, ENSO predictability suffers during the upcoming ‘spring barrier’ and at times lead to an unstable ENSO regime. This will be factored in our comprehensive April monsoon forecast.
Skymet is India’s largest weather monitoring and agri-risk solution company. It has expertise in measuring, predicting, and limiting climate risk to agriculture. For the past 15 years, Skymet has been catering to weather analytics and data needs of media, insurance and agriculture. Government of Maharashtra, Government of Gujarat, NSDMA, SBI, USAID, Reliance Infra, World Bank, HDFC ERGO, IFC, Agriculture Insurance Corporation of India Limited, and ICICI LOMBARD have been some of its clients. Skymet is backed by ag-tech venture capitalist Omnivore Partners, InsuResilience Investment Fund and dmg:: information.
