Now, IMD predicts 50% chance of El Nino this year

NEW DELHI: The India Meteorological Department has said there's a 50% chance of an El Nino this summer, joining the ranks of weather agencies from the US and Australia in predicting a high probability of the weather condition that's linked to poor monsoons in India.

While it is early days yet for El Nino forecasts for this year's summer to be high on reliability , the Pacific Ocean has continued to warm in the regions which spell the onset of the phenomenon.

"Warm-neutral conditions persist in the Pacific at the moment. Our models predict a 50% probability of a weak El Nino forming by mid-2015," said D Sivananda Pai, head of long range forecasting in IMD.

The forecast is likely to be released on the IMD website on Monday .

The possibility of a sub-par monsoon this year comes at a time when farmers in India have been facing the brunt of unseasonal rains since the start of March, which have officially impacted crops in 105 lakh hectares, not counting the damage incurred in rain storms during the past week.

An evolving El Nino had affected the first half of the monsoon last year before suddenly subsiding and paving the way for good rains in August. The season ended with an 11% rain deficit, affecting the kharif output in the country . Updates released earlier this week by US's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) and Australian Bureau of Meteorology continue to predict an El Nino this summer.

CPC, in an advisory on March 30, reiterated its earlier prediction of a 50%-60% chance of an El Nino continuing into this summer.The agency has declared weak El Nino conditions are already present in the Pacific.

The Australian agency, which had put out an El Nino 'watch' alert earlier in March, said all international climate models monitored by it were predicting that El Nino thresholds will be reached or exceeded by mid-year. "However, the accuracy of model outlooks at this time of year, the traditional El Nino­Southern Oscillation transition period, is lower than for outlooks made at other times of the year," it added.