India/Southeast Asia Pattern Change

Fig. 1-2: Daily soil moisture anomaly analysis by NOAA across Asia and last week’s percent of normal rainfall.  

Discussion: Entering May, soil moisture conditions are generally favorable across India except for drought in the far northeast sector while Southeast Asia drought is worsening (Fig. 1). Last week’s rainfall pattern maintained a wet regime across India while all Southeast Asia was dry (Fig. 2). However, there is a major pattern change on the way! All models indicate evolution of a major tropical cyclone later this week in the central Bay of Bengal (Fig. 3) moving inland Myanmar early in the 6-10-day period (Fig. 4). Extreme rain will spread across the Southeast Asia drought zone during the period likely lingering in the 11-15-day timeframe (Fig. 5). To the west of the heavy tropical rains, India turns very dry and hot as soil moisture conditions could trend sharply drier (Fig. 6).

Fig. 3-6: The GFS 15-day rainfall forecast for the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia plus the 15-day temperature anomaly forecast for India.