Less rain in Monsoon 2000

By Our Correspondent
Bangalore, April 25


The Centre for Mathema-tical Modelling and Computer Simulation here has predicted low rainfall during the monsoon this year compared to 1999, owing to factors like atmospheric conditions and spatial distribution of the weather system.

However, the forecast does not necessarily mean that drought will result in parts of the country. Research scientist at the centre Prashant Goswami told The Asian Age, “This year the overall monsoon rainfall in India will be around 789 mm (31 inches) against 840 mm last year.”

However, he clarified, “There is no connection between the low rainfall and drought. Factors like water management and water resource policy contribute to a drought and the low rainfall is not the only reason.”

Though last year’s monsoon was considered normal on the whole, three states are suffering from drought due to regional imbalances in monsoon rains and other factors during 1999, Mr Goswami said. He said the centre was able to forecast the rainfall based on a neural network model which is an algorithm.

The data of previous years’ rainfall is fed into the system and the forecast for the year is predicted, he said. He said the method was different when compared to the one used by the meteorology department.

“The met department uses power regression, which involves some parameters like sea surface temperature, snowfall, atmospheric pressure and hemispheric temperature. This data is accumulated by the Met department only by the end of May. So it takes some time for them to predict the rainfall for the year,” he said.

The meteorological department is expected to give the official forecast for the June-September south-west monsoon rains in the second half of May, Mr Goswami said. He said the drought-hit regions are hoping for some relief from the south-west monsoon rains due to hit the subcontinent in early June.

According to him, Mr Goswami said the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation had found that overall monsoon rains would be good in July and August and poor in September. “September is forecast to receive poor rainfall accounting for the overall poor performance of the monsoon,” he said.