New Delhi: As per the prediction by India’s only private weather forecaster skymet, Monsoon this year is more likely to be normal.

 “Good news for the country, expect normal monsoon this year,” Skymet posted on its twitter account.

As per the report by the agency, this year’s monsoon will be normal at 100 per cent of the long-period average or LPA of 887 millimetres for the four-month period from June to September.

India terms the monsoon to be average, or normal, when the rainfall is between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of a 50-year average of 89 centimetres for the entire four-month season.

The government run Meterological Department or IMD will release its monsoon forecast sometime in the month of April.

A normal monsoon will prove to be a boon for many crops such as rice, cane, corn, cotton and soybeans.

The agency, SkymetWeather, has drawn up some scenarios for certain monsoon types that range from below to normal to excess rainfall. About 55 per cent chance is about a normal monsoon which is between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of LPA.

The agency has forecasted of about 20 per cent chance with both above normal and below normal rainfall alongwith a 5 per cent likelihood of excess rainfall.

But for the southern part of the country, the matter is a bit different, according to the report published on the Skymetweather.com website. The areas that will receive less amount of rainfall this year in the south will be, coastal Karnataka, Kerala and South interior Karnataka.

Among the same category will be the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu which are also likely to see less rain in the coming monsoon. But for Telangana, the prediction is somewhat different with a normal rainfall, according to the weather agency.

Monsoon rains this year are very less likely to be unaffected by the El Nino weather pattern, which is likely to begin in only after the four-month rainy season ends in September, a top government weather officer had said in March. El Nino is a warming of ocean water surface temperatures in the eastern and central Pacific that typically occurs every few years.

“It’s a little early to talk about the monsoon season, but there are indications that the current La Nina condition will turn into a neutral phase towards the end of the season,” said Madhavan Nair Rajeevan, scientist at the Ministry of Earth Sciences, which oversees the Meteorological Department.

“Since the neutral phase is likely to develop only towards the end of the monsoon season, El Nino could emerge only after the season ends in September,” Mr Rajeevan told news agency Reuters.

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