In a not-so-encouraging update, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday, June 12, said that El Niño conditions currently prevailing over the equatorial Pacific Ocean are expected to strengthen further during the southwest monsoon season.
The atmosphere is responding to the warming sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and the coupled ocean-atmosphere system is now exhibiting characteristics consistent with El Niño conditions, it added.
The weather office has already forecast below-average rainfall during the June-September southwest monsoon season, at 90 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA), with a model error margin of 4 per cent.
According to the weather office, forecasts from the Monsoon Mission Coupled Forecast System (MMCFS) indicate the further strengthening of El Niño conditions during the monsoon season.
El Niño is a naturally occurring climate pattern characterised by the unusual warming of SSTs in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.
This is not all, at present, neutral Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) conditions prevail over the Indian Ocean. Forecasts indicate that neutral IOD conditions are likely to persist through the June-September season.
The IOD is an ocean-atmosphere phenomenon defined by the difference in the SSTs between the western and eastern tropical Indian Ocean.
A positive IOD is generally considered favourable for the monsoon as it creates warmer SSTs in the western Indian Ocean, increasing moisture transport towards the Indian subcontinent and often offsetting the drying impact of El Niño conditions.
During May 2026, SSTs were generally above average across the equatorial central and eastern Pacific Ocean. Positive SST anomalies also persisted over the far eastern Pacific, the Maritime Continent, and parts of the western Pacific.
Above-average SSTs were also observed across the tropical and extratropical regions of both the North and South Pacific oceans, as well as over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
Compared with April 2026, predominantly positive SST anomalies were evident across the eastern Indian Ocean, the northern Arabian Sea, and the northern Bay of Bengal in May 2026, the IMD said.