Indian monsoon variability in relation to Regional Pressure Index

In this paper Regional Pressure Index (RPI) over the Indian region (20‡N—40‡N and 70‡0E—85‡E) has been constructed for 101 years (1899-1999) on a monthly scale. The relationship of these indices was carried out with the Indian Summer Monsoon Rainfall (June–September) (ISMR) over the various homogeneous regions, for all the time scales. From the analysis it has been seen that RPI in the month of May is significantly associated with ISMR over various regions on all the scales. The relationship is statistically significant at 1% level. The study reveals that RPI in the month of May and January will be a new precursor for the long range forecasting of ISMR on the smaller spatial scale. On the decadal and climatological scale, winter and spring time RPI show a significant inverse relationship with the rainfall over the regions Peninsular India (PI) and North West India (NWI), while the association is direct with Central North East India (CNEI) and North East India (NEI). The relationship is significant at 0.1 and 1% level respectively.