NEW DELHI: Bringing cheer to farmers and policy-planners, especially those in parts of the country that are already battling extreme heat and a significantly high number of heat wave days are expected in the April to June period, the IMD said on Monday that India would have above-normal monsoon rains this season on the back of favourable La Nina conditions.

Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary M Ravichandran told a press conference that the seasonal rainfall would be on the higher side of ‘above-normal’, and pegged it at 106 per cent of the long-period average (87 cm).

However, normal cumulative rainfall does not guarantee uniform distribution of rain, with climate change further increasing the variability of the rain-bearing system.

Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, the director general of the IMD, said there is a 29 per cent chance of normal rainfall, 31 per cent chance of above-normal rainfall and 30 per cent chance of excess precipitation during the monsoon season, adding that parts of northwest, east and northeast India are expected to receive below-normal rainfall.

Data from the 1951-2023 period shows India experienced above-normal rainfall in the monsoon season on all the nine occasions when La Nina followed an El Nino event, Mohapatra said. El Nino conditions - periodic warming of surface waters in the central Pacific Ocean - are associated with weaker monsoon winds and drier conditions in India.

La Nina conditions - the antithesis of El Nino - are the dominant factor in the likelihood of “above-normal” rainfall during the monsoon season, D S Pai, a senior scientist at the IMD, told PTI. The country gauged above-normal or normal monsoon in 20 out of the 22 La Nina years.