International agencies predict 50% chance of El Nino in second half of 2023

Chances on El Nino has continued to rise, and there have been reports on this almost on a daily basis. El Nino creates abnormal warming of the Pacific Ocean, and it is known to negatively impact the Indian monsoon, and the forecast is likely to see more clarity or more accuracy coming in only by the earlier summer months. So, by April or May we will get a clarity on how strong the El Nino is, and what months really could get impacted by that.

The Indian markets in the El Nino years and the data shows that 60 percent of a probability of drought comes here and there is nearly 30 percent probability of below normal rains and there is only 10 percent probability of a normal rain in El Nino years.

These El Nino years are linked to poor southwest monsoon and the earlier El Nino years have been 2009, 2014, 2015 and 2018. The last three or four years in the Indian markets have been good monsoon, above normal monsoon.

However, this year, international agencies predict that there's a 50 percent chance in the second half of this year to see an El Nino. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has predicted this, while the Japan Meteorology organisation too has mentioned the same possibility. The Bureau of Meteorology organisation has also said a similar thing.  Meanwhile, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has said that there needs to be cautious and you could be looking at weather disturbances coming in starting as early as July or August.

For India, the month of February 2023 was the hottest and warmest in 122 years and the Skymet already has warned in the Indian markets of an El Nino. As of now, there is no official statement coming from India Meteorological Department (IMD) on that. The IMD has said that they will come out with an official statement only by the month of April.

For the global markets, the global average temperature can raise by 0.2 degrees Celsius in the era of El Nino and the overall temperature 1.08 to 1.32 degrees Celsius is the rise since the pre-industrial levels.

In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Carlos Mera Arzeno, Senior Commodity Analyst at Rabobank said, “We are coming from three consecutive La-Nina’s, this is the first time we had that in the data. At the moment we have just turned to neutrality but there is an increasing probability of El-Nino by the end of the year. El-Nino could have an impact over India, Australia and Indonesia. It will also affect crops in India. In international commodities it will affect sugar and palm oil prices.”