Wrong prediction

There is good news on the monsoon front in the last few days,  and it is even possible that the fears about the deficiency of rainfall, which were real in June and July, may have been exaggerated.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced last week that for the first time in this season, the weekly rainfall was above the average. Thanks to the late burst of showers, the total rainfall in the country this year may be just 12 per  cent below the long-term average. If wet conditions persist it may go below 10 per cent.

Only a shortage above 10 per cent would make a year a drought year. So this year will not see a severe in deficiency in terms of the national average. But many regions may have suffered  from poor rainfall and many crops may have been adversely hit because of the variation in the geographical and temporal distribution of rain.

The IMD has made serious mistakes in its monsoon prediction this year. In April it said that the monsoon would be normal at 99 per cent of the average. In June it reiterated the prediction, though the percentage was projected to be slightly lower at 96. But in August the IMD drastically revised its prediction, projecting a rainfall well below 90 per cent. But the monsoon behaved exactly opposite to the IMD’s views.

There was a 30 per cent deficiency when the IMD predicted normal rains, and copious rainfall when it expected a situation close to a meteorological drought. The IMD had gone wrong in its predictions in previous years also. What makes the IMD’s mistakes glaring is that international weather bodies had predicted this year’s monsoon pattern fairly correctly.

Weather is a complex phenomenon and it is not easy to make correct forecasts every time. But the IMD’s predictions have gone wrong so many times and in so many ways that serious doubts have arisen about its models and methodology. More efforts and research should go into the study of the monsoon and if necessary we should go in for greater international co-operation and collaboration in the area.

If the monsoon finally turns out to be normal, it would not bring any credit to the IMD. Those who acted according to its advice suffered, first when it said there would be rains and later when it said there would not be enough rains. We should have a more reliable and useful weather prediction system.