Rain Check

AT 4.30 am or zero GMT every morning, from a nook between Mumbai8217;s overworked domestic and international airports, a flight worth Rs 6,...

AT 4.30 am or zero GMT every morning, from a nook between Mumbai8217;s overworked domestic and international airports, a flight worth Rs 6,000 takes off to spy on the clouds.

Will it rain?
From sunburnt Orissa to Dalal Street, from the anxious, debt-ridden farmer to the bored kid making paper boats, they8217;re getting restless. For that telling gush of wind, dark clouds that burst and don8217;t just tease, that fresh smell of washed earth.

So weathermen send a messenger8212;a balloon bloated with three kilos of hydrogen and gadgets to detect which way the wind blows, how fast8212;and how wet.

8216;8216;It predicts the approaching monsoon and weather,8217;8217; says S. Samant, an old hand at balloons sent skyward twice daily from 35 weather stations nationwide. From 30 km high, the balloon8217;s gizmos beam the day8217;s weather to a ground station before crashing, lost forever.

This ritual is as turbulent as that business of forecasting the Indian southwest monsoon, affected by faraway phenomena like the warming of the Pacific waters.

A moody, enigmatic and mind-of-its-own national event, the monsoon holds 75-90 per cent of India8217;s total water requirement for drinking, agriculture and power generation.

Climate variability of the Asian monsoon impacts half the globe8217;s population, so a lab in Columbia University is studying thousand-year-old tree-rings to crack its mysteries.

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But weathermen back home still run into rough weather forecasting the monsoon despite over 100 years of practise since the India Meteorological Department8217;s IMD first monsoon forecast8212;June 4, 18868212;for India and Burma.

BUT 1886 was long ago: 19 major flood years and 22 major drought years swept the nation from 1871 to 2003. But for 44 years during 1921-1964, only three years witnessed drought8212;as per a Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology IITM index.

And there8217;s the planet8217;s wettest place Cherrapunji. A weatherman tells us a8216;8216;world record8217;8217;8212;156 cm rainfall on June 16, 1995, with 42 cm in 60 minutes.

8216;8216;Pressure on us is tremendous,8217;8217; confesses M. Rajeevan, director, National Climate Centre, Pune, annually besieged by calls from industry and finance. Last year, he admits, the IMD could not anticipate 13 per cent deficiency in rainfall.

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The June-September monsoon8212;from mausim, Arabic for season8212;forecast is India8217;s best-kept secret until release, plotted feverishly by Rajeevan8217;s 11-member team that8217;s come a long way from sending weather telegrams and securing one of India8217;s first computers.

The season8217;s bestseller for big business, the forecast is a guide to predict sale of scooters, cement, soaps or stock profits if rural incomes fall or rise based on rainfall. Agriculture makes a quarter of the economy.

This businesslike cloudwatching, industrialist Adi Godrej8217;s team subscribes to the World Meteorological Organisation, is far from simpler days of the wise men. Kautilya8217;s Arthashastra lectured on rainfall and revenue; Kalidasa8217;s Meghdoot boldly mentioned a date of onset, tracing the monsoon8217;s path.

Governments have grappled with the monsoon since East India Company days, and a certain Sir H.F. Blandford who studied snowfall over the Himalayas established IMD in 1875.

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This April the IMD forecast 75 per cent probability of 8216;8216;near normal and above8217;8217; rainfall based on a statistical method of ocean, land, atmospheric parameters. Same time, a Bangalore-based Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computing Simulation CMMACS used a dynamical method to predict 22 per cent excess June rainfall.

But soon CMMACS revised its forecast to 34 per cent June deficiency. The monsoon arrived late in Kerala on June 5, evaded its June 10 date with Mumbai and seemed stuck in Goa. The sensex dipped and scientists complained: The Bangalore team was confusing the nation.

Now wait for Monday8217;s action. IMD will update its forecast, based on 10 parameters.The clouds must be grinning.