Predicting Indian monsoon rainfall: a neural network approach

The summer monsoon rainfall over India is predicted by using neural networks. These computational structures are used as a nonlinear method to correlate preseason predictors to rainfall data, and as an algorithm for reconstruction of the rainfall time-series intrinsic dynamics. A combined approach is developed which captures the information built into both the stochastic approach based on suitable predictors and the deterministic dynamical model of the time series. The hierarchical network so obtained has forecasting capabilities remarkably improved with respect to conventional methods.