El Niño is a climate pattern that describes the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean and causes deficiency in rainfall in the Indian subcontinent.
“The El Nino will continue to the fall season,” IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said adding that there are other factors that affect monsoon such as the Indian Ocean Dipole.
The weather department has also predicted an increase in the number of heatwave days from April to June, particularly in central, east, and northwest India.
“A significantly higher number of heatwave days are predicted over parts of Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana,” Mohapatra said.
“During the 2023 hot weather season (April to June), most parts of the country are expected to experience above-normal maximum temperatures, except for south peninsular India and some parts of northwest India where normal to below-normal maximum temperatures are likely,” he added.
The rainfall during April 2023 averaged over the country as a whole is most likely to be normal (88-112% of LPA). Normal to above normal rainfall is expected over most parts of the Northwest, Central and Peninsular India whereas below normal rainfall is likely over East and Northeast India and some areas over the west coast of India.