Heavy monsoon likely,but it’s too early for predictions

However,Sharma said they have not forecast a heavy monsoon over Mumbai so far,and that there is no need to panic about a flood-like situation yet.

“There is an astronomical high-tide prediction on July 24,25 in the city,but we aren’t yet predicting heavy rains,” he said,“Once monsoon sets in,we will monitor the wind patterns and compute the expected rainfall accordingly.”

On Friday,the IMD released its Long Range Forecast for 2009 south-west (from June to September) for India and stated that on the whole,the monsoon is likely to be near normal this year. Quantitatively,the seasonal rainfall is likely to be 96 per cent of the long period average (with a model error of 5 %t plus or minus),it said.

Sharma said,“Considering that the long period average rainfall over India is about 89 cm,we are expecting about 84-85 cm (96 per cent) rainfall in the entire country,” he said. IMD will update the forecast in June as a part of the second stage forecasts,he stated. 

Meanwhile,professor Kapil Gupta of the department of Civil Engineering,IIT,said,“A country-wide forecast doesn’t help much in flood management of a single state. What we need is a state-wise prediction.”