Droughtfire: El-Nino still strong, repeat of last year may be on cards

NEW DELHI: It's rare for two successive monsoons to be under the shadow of El Nino, the weather condition usually linked to poor rains in India. When Union science and technology minister Harsh Vardhan announced IMD's forecast for this year's monsoon on Wednesday, it had similarities with last year's prediction.

While IMD's predicted monsoon in 2015 would be 93% of the long-term normal, the forecast was 95% for 2014. Both years, El Nino drove the below-normal forecasts.

This year glo bal agencies say El Nino has set in; last April the weather event was evolving. Chances of El Nino through this summer are 70%, said US weather agency NCEP . Last year, IMD gave a probability of 60% that El Nino would last the summer, the country's monsoon season. But an El Nino didn't form in 2014; the warming ocean waters in central and east Pacific started cooling by June. But the Pacific had warmed up enough for the monsoon's first one-anda-half months to be affected, experts said.

The season ended with rains 88% of normal, making 2014 a drought year -government uses the term `deficient monsoon'. June was disastrous, with 57% of average rain. Subsequent months were better at 90% (July and August) and 108% (September).But by then, farmers had sown their kharif crops and battled to save it. Northwest India bore the brunt: rain shortfall of 21%. The grain bowl belt of Punjab, Haryana and west UP was the hardest hit, receiving less than half normal rain.In Marathwada, Telangana, Rayalaseema and coastal Andhra were 12 subdivisions where the rain deficit was 20% or more -an area covering roughly a third of India.

Kharif output in 2014 dropped by 5.1 million tonnes, down 6.5% over 2013, setting off a period of agrarian distress that's continued into the rabi season, when record unseasonal showers in MarchApril hit crops.