-The Indian Express A tussle is on between El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole. Government cannot afford to be a bystander. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted that India will get deficient rains in 2015, likely to be 88 per cent of the long period average (LPA) of 89 cm, which is the average seasonal rain (June-September) received by the country in the 50 years between 1951 and 2000....
More »SEARCH RESULT
Weather department downgrades monsoon forecast to 88%, stokes drought fears; govt 'prays'
-Hindustan Times India’s June-September monsoon, the lifeblood of Asia’s third-largest economy, will most likely be “deficient” this year with the met department downgrading its forecast from 93% to 88%, earth sciences minister Harsh Vardhan said on Tuesday. The India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) revision -- which had forecast “below normal” monsoon in April -- will potentially toughen challenges for the Narendra Modi government already battling a farm crisis triggered by unseasonal rains in...
More »UP staring at drought worse than 2014 -Brajendra K Parashar
-Hindustan Times Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh is staring at a drought worse than last year’s, officials said on Thursday, raising worries of a severe impact on the kharif crop crucial to feeding millions of people in the country’s most populous state. The state government has put 70 out of the 75 districts on high alert and also prepared a contingency plan after the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) forecast a below normal monsoon this...
More »Heat & dust raise Delhi’s air toxins to critical levels
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Day temperatures dropped marginally on Thursday but there was hardly any relief for weather-beaten Delhiites as toxins in the air rose alarmingly due to a cloud cover trapping pollutants. The capital's air quality index (AQI) breached the 'severe' level, going from 219 (poor) on Wednesday to 410 in one of the sharpest single-day spikes in recent months. Fine particle pollution (PM2.5) that AQI measures wasn't the...
More »'On time' prediction for India's monsoon season -Richard Angwin
-Al Jazeera The country's summer rains are due to start on June 1, but they may still leave some farmers disappointed. India’s monsoon rains, upon which the country relies so heavily, are expected to arrive "on time" according to the country’s Meteorological Department (IMD). The arrival of the summer monsoon is monitored very closely in India. Agriculture accounts for 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and it employs some 60 percent of...
More »