New Delhi: Private weather forecasting agency Skymet has predicted an ‘above normal’ Southwest monsoon this year.
The forecast of above normal monsoon would augur well for the agriculture sector which is under stress due to two consecutive years of poor seasonal rainfall.
The country, it said, will get 5% more rain than the normal 887 mm that it gets in the monsoon months of June, July, August and September. There was only a 15% chance of the monsoon being ‘below normal,’ defined as monsoon rains being less than 95% of the normal.
"There is 35 per cent chance of above normal seasonal rainfall that is between 105 to 110 per cent of Long Period Average (LPA), while there are 30 per cent chance of normal (between 96 to 104 per cent of LPA)," the Skymet said in its forecast for this year on Monday.
The western coast would see ‘fairly good rains’ and the latter half of the monsoon was likely to see better rainfall than the first half, it said.
Rainfall in June is likely to be 10% deficient with a pickup expected in July and August, the most important months as far as cropping is concerned, it said.
A good monsoon this year is critical to boost agricultural productivity as well as farm incomes, especially on the back of successive monsoon failures in 2014 and 2015.
“We have more confidence in our weather forecasting models this time than last year,” Jatin Singh, CEO, Skymet, said.
Skymet said that it expected the monsoon to set in on time over Kerala in the week around June 1.
