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India
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

‘Super El Nino’ threatens India’s monsoon rains, critical crops

  • The climate pattern El Nino heralds hotter, drier conditions, which could turn a not-so-great rainy season into a bad one for India
  • Nearly 60 per cent of the country’s 1.4 billion people directly or indirectly depend on agriculture for their source of income

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A street vendor rests during a hot afternoon in Kolkata, India, where temperatures in the summer, or pre-monsoon season range from 38 to 45 degrees Celsius. Photo: EPA-EFE
Penny MacRae
As if scorching temperatures predicted for India’s summer months were not enough, El Nino is now threatening to play spoiler to the monsoon rains that typically bring an end to the excruciating dry heat and irrigate parched crops.
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“La Nina conditions are changing rapidly to El Nino and by the time the monsoon arrives around June, El Nino should be making its presence felt,” said GP Sharma, president of privately owned Skymet Weather Services. “And this El Nino could be one of the strongest yet – some people are calling it a super-El Nino event.”

El Nino and La Nina are two opposing climate patterns over the Pacific Ocean. La Nina generally brings cooler, wetter weather, while El Nino heralds hotter, drier conditions. Climate models globally show a “high chance” of El Nino returning in June and replacing La Nina.
El Nino corrupts the monsoon rainfall, sometimes very seriously
GP Sharma, Skymet Weather Services

Both Skymet and the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) already expect the monsoon to deliver a relatively modest amount of rainfall during its June-to-September journey across India.

The arrival of El Nino could turn a not-so-great rainy season into a bad one, bringing hardship to the nearly 60 per cent of India’s 1.4 billion population who directly or indirectly depend on agriculture as their main source of income.

“El Nino corrupts the monsoon rainfall, sometimes very seriously,” Sharma said.

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Droughts have occurred in India in five of six El Nino years since 2000, Skymet noted in a statement. There were “severe droughts” in two of those years and a “near drought” in the last El Nino year in 2018.

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