Relationship between all-India summer monsoon rainfall and southern oscillation/eastern equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature

The interannual variability of all-India summer monsoon (June to September) rainfall and its teleconnections with the southern oscillation index (SOI) and sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly of the eastern equatorial Pacific ocean have been examined for the period 1871–1978 for different seasons (i.e., winter, spring, summer and autumn). The relationship (correlation coefficient) between all-India summer monsoon rainfall andSOI for different seasons is positive and highly significant. Further examination of 10-, 20- and 30-year sliding window lengths’ correlations, brings out the highly consistent and significant character of the relationships. The relationship between all-India monsoon rainfall andSST for different seasons is negative and is significant at 1 % level or above. Drought years are characterised by negative anomalies ofSOI and positive anomalies ofSST and vice versa with flood years. The relationship betweenSOI andSST is negative and significant at 0.1 % level. The relationships between all-India summer monsoon rainfall,SOI and sst are expected to improve our understanding of the interannual variability of the summer monsoon.