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Southwest monsoon 2023 will get going under the shadow of an evolving El Nino. El Nino invariably corrupts the bursts of monsoon and therefore, an aberration of seasonal rainfall is highly probable.

The model reliability is low at this point of time, the precursors are all hinting at an evolving El Nino during the monsoon months. The process may as well start, earlier than expected.

El Nino pattern does not repeat itself verbatim. However, in general, El Nino events tend to develop during the period Apr-Jun and quite often reach their maximum intensity during Oct-Feb.

El Nino episodes, irrespective of 'evolving' or 'standard', usually result in spoiling Indian Monsoon. Rainfall over South Asia and Southeast Asia covering India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and West Pacific ring countries bear the risk of deficient rains during monsoon season.

El Nino is an atmospheric-oceanic interaction phenomenon. Its prediction is done using hydrodynamical coupled ocean-atmosphere models and statistical models. The atmospheric component brings out speed and directional changes of the trade winds.

Long range predictions indicate gradual warming of Tropical Pacific, to reach ENSO neutral by Feb-Mar 2023. However, accuracy is generally lower for long range forecast made at this time of the year. Therefore, ENSO pattern need to be carefully tracked during the spring season.

Official Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) ENSO probability forecast , based on observational and predictive information from early in the month of January, projected evolving El Nino conditions during the Indian Summer Monsoon.

Last 3 years have seen an unusual run of consecutive La Nina event. Its gradual decline is imminent. Early forecast suggest return of El Nino later half of 2023. El Nino, if materialises, will be riding on the back of climate change and the two put together may spell adverse weather conditions over large part of the globe.

El Nino needs to be tracked closely during the next few months. It has a history of erratic behaviour during March-April, popularly mentioned as the 'spring barrier'.

There are early precursors, showing signs of dwindling by recede of Northern Hemispheric winters. La Nina is expected to continue into the winters, albeit with equitable chance of La Nina and ENSO neutral during Jan-Mar 2023