Inconsistent Asia Monsoon for Summer 2023

Fig. 1-2: Rainfall and temperature anomalies for the past 60 days across India to China and vicinity.

Discussion: According to Reuters, hydropower generation “plunged at the fastest rate in decades with sharp declines in China and India forcing power regulators battling volatile electricity demand and erratic weather to rely more heavily on fossil fuel”. The 60-day rainfall pattern (since July 24^th) has featured mostly drier than normal climate across much of India while areas of wet weather affected China in between excessive hot/dry spells (Fig. 1-2). The prevailing upper air pattern featured low-pressure wet weather zones from the Philippines toward Japan and east of Caspian Sea with general high-pressure in-between, delivering a mostly dry and hot climate to India with patchy rains for China while Northern China was quite hot. The summer 2023 forecast from Climate Impact Company issued late last March indicated a hotter than observed forecast across both China and India while the rainfall forecast was properly wet in China but too wet in India (Fig. 3-4).

Fig. 3-4: Climate Impact Company constructed analog temperature/precipitation anomaly climate outlook for summer 2023 issued late last March.