THE ABILITY OF THE EL NINO — SOUTHERN OSCILLATION (ENSO) EVENT APPLIED TO PREDICT THE SUMMER INDIAN MONSOON

O. G. Zolina and E. K. Semenov

A physical mechanism of the relationship between the El Nino—Southern Oscillation event and summer Indian monsoon circulation is considered. Based on objective analyses from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), it is shown that the wind and sea surface patterns in the equatorial Pacific in a preceding winter may be an important predictive indication of the intensity of summer monsoon rainfall in different regions of India. A procedure of the long-term statistical prediction of the intensity of monsoon rainfall over India is proposed. The testing of the method on independent data has shown that summer rainfall in central India and on the Arabian Sea coast is predicted most reliably, and rainfall in southern India is predicted worst of all.