INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CLIMATOLOGY

Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)

Published online 7 August 2007 in Wiley InterScience
(www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1577

An empirical model for the seasonal prediction of southwest

monsoon rainfall over Kerala, a meteorological subdivision
of India
Lorna R. Nayagam,* Rajesh Janardanan and H. S. Ram Mohan
Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Lakeside Campus, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Fine Arts Avenue, Cochin, 682 016, India

ABSTRACT: There are several studies showing a skillful empirical prediction of the All India Summer Monsoon Rainfall
(AISMR) based on various combination of parameters as the predictors. However, the southwest monsoon rainfall over
Kerala, a meteorological subdivision of India, bears a considerably low correlation coefficient with the AISMR. This
implies that the existing predictors in the long-range forecast models of the AISMR do not have much influence on the
Kerala Summer Monsoon Rainfall (KSMR). This study attempts to examine the relationship of some ocean and atmospheric
parameters with the rainfall and to formulate a linear multiple regression model for the long-range forecast over a small
area like the Kerala. Parameters having significant correlation (significant at 1% level) with the KSMR were identified
for the period 1961–1994. The consistency of the relationship between these parameters and the KSMR was checked by
doing a 21-year sliding window correlation (significant at 5% level). Using a stepwise regression method, seven predictors,
explaining a significant amount of variance in the KSMR were selected and a linear multiple regression model was
developed. The parameters that explain the high inter-annual variability of the KSMR are specific humidity, sensible heat
net flux, relative humidity, zonal wind at 70 and 10 hPa, meridional wind and geopotential height. The characteristics of
the forecast and its reliability were studied by various statistical techniques such as, Durbin Watson statistics and variance
inflation factor. The model has a multiple correlation of 0.943 and coefficient of determination of 88.8%. The root mean
square error (RMSE) was 6.60% (15.80%), bias (BIAS) was −0.26% (6.20%), absolute error (ABSE) was 5.33% (13.15%)
of mean rainfall for the training (test) period respectively. Climatological predictions were also made and the RMSE was
(17.90%), BIAS (−5.40%) and ABSE (15.16%) of mean rainfall. The selected parameters were at least 2 months prior to
the monsoon season and hence have predictive value. Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society
KEY WORDS long-range forecast; multiple linear regression; stepwise regression; variance inflation factor; Durbin Watson
statistic; KSMR
Received 10 June 2006; Revised 5 May 2007; Accepted 20 May 2007

1. Introduction circulation, ocean circulation, snow cover, etc. (Pant

Agricultural practices and power generation in India are
primarily dependent on the summer monsoon rainfall and
its variability. Rainfall forecasts help farmers and water
resources management personnel in planning agricultural
operations for the maximum utilization of precipitation.
Farmers would be more alert for rainfall extremes and
thus, less vulnerable if efficient forecasts were dissemi-
nated in time. Moreover, power generation in Kerala is
mainly hydel. Irrigation and power generation thus, heav-
ily depend on the main rainy season (June–September).
Thus, a forecast of the monsoon rainfall over this region
during the season would be of utmost benefit.
Many studies have identified about 30 parameters,
which bear significant correlation with all India summer
monsoon rainfall (AISMR). They generally fall under the
following heads viz. pressure, temperature, atmospheric
* Correspondence to: Lorna R. Nayagam, Department of Atmospheric
Sciences, Lakeside Campus, Cochin University of Science and Tech-
nology, Fine Arts Avenue, Cochin, 682 016, India.
E-mail: lorna arn@yahoo.com, lorna@cusat.ac.in
and Rupa Kumar, 1997). Different combinations of
these parameters have been used for the long-range
prediction of AISMR and many regression models have
been proposed from among these variables by several
investigators (Gowariker et al., 1989, 1991; Hastenrath,
1991; Parthasarathy et al., 1991; Thapliyal, 1997). Many
of them were selected subjectively according to the
meteorological aspects of the parameters of the rainfall
and have limitations in explaining the variance in rainfall.
Also, the objective selection of the variables by statistical
methods is dependent on the position and size of the
sample (Thapliyal, 1987; Parthasarathy et al., 1988).
Based on these facts, many parameters have been used
to derive forecast models for AISMR (Parthasarathy
et al., 1988; Vernekar et al., 1995). However, some of
these parameters lose significance when the position
of the sample shifts from the training period to a
much later time. There are also studies indicating some
features regarding the spatial coherence of the correlation
coefficients between these parameters and rainfall over
the country. The high correlation coefficients are over

Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society

824
Figure 1. Correlation coefficients of AISMR with the Subdivisional rainfall of India. Kerala subdivision is shaded.
northwestern and central India and the lowest over
northeast and western peninsular India (Parthasarathy
et al., 1991; Krishna Kumar et al., 1995). India, as a
whole is too large a region to be treated as a single
unit, implying that it is not spatially homogenous to
rainfall (Normand, 1953; Rasmusson and Carpenter,
1983). Rainfall in some areas has negligible correlation
with that in some other parts of the country. Our
analysis shows that AISMR is significantly correlated
with the subdivisional rainfall of northwest and central
India, and a very weak relation exists over the southern
part of the peninsula and northeast (windward side of
the Western Ghats and The Himalayas) (Figure 1). For
Kerala, the value is as low as 0.09 for an analysis
period of about 54 years. This implies that the existing
predictors in the long-range forecast models of the
AISMR do not have much influence on the Kerala
summer monsoon rainfall (KSMR). The State receives
a mean rainfall of 1871 mm in the southwest monsoon
season. Sixty-eight percent of the total rainfall of the
Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society
L. R. NAYAGAM ET AL
state is received in this season. The variability of the
southwest monsoon rainfall is very high (SD 368.58 mm)
compared to that of AISMR (SD 82 mm). So, there
is a need for better forecasting techniques based on
relevant parameters for the areas that are not well
represented in the existing forecast models. During the
summer monsoon months Kerala is to the windward
side of the Western Ghats mountain ranges. These facts
together justify the need for a long-range forecast model
for Kerala, one of the southern-most meteorological
subdivisions in India.
Forecast of monsoon rainfall over small areas or
smaller periods, such as a week, become difficult. One
way to tackle this is to do different ensemble runs of
numerical models. However till today, these models do
not have the capability to accurately reproduce the salient
features of monsoon and its variability (Rajeevan et al.,
2004, Gadgil et al., 2005). So, the forecast for these
smaller regions, whenever necessary, needs to be based
on statistical methods.
Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
 SEASONAL PREDICTION OF RAINFALL OVER KERALA, INDIA
The approach used for long-range forecasts in India
relies heavily on teleconnections that have been estab-
lished through the use of statistical analysis and that have
a dynamical and thermodynamical basis (Gowariker,
2002) though statistical models have many inherent limi-
tations (Thapliyal and Kulshrestha, 1992; Krishna Kumar
et al., 1995; Rajeevan, 2001; Thapliyal and Rajeevan,
2003). Rajeevan et al., 2004 have commented that on a
spatial scale, we have to explore possibilities of demarcat-
ing more than the present three homogeneous regions of
the country using better criteria. In this study, an attempt
is made to identify parameters both global as well as
regional, and to mould them into a simple and skill-
ful multiple regression model to predict summer mon-
soon rainfall over the Kerala subdivision. This study is a
first attempt to formulate a linear regression model for
the prediction of summer monsoon rainfall over Ker-
ala.
2. Data
The subdivisional and all India rainfall (in millimeters)
data (IITM-IMR) used were obtained from Parthasarathy
et al. (1994), recently updated and maintained by Indian
Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, for the period of
1961–2004. All India rainfall is an area-weighted average
of rainfall from 29 subdivisions. Subdivisonal rainfall
is computed from the area-weighted average of district
rainfall, which in turn is computed from averaging data
from all stations in the district. Rainfall amounts are totals
for the months June, July, August and September. The
data is consistent from 1871 to 1990 and is constructed
from a 306-station network, with no missing data. The
data for the recent period 1991–2004 are preliminary
estimates based on the subdivisional means supplied
by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), which
are based on a variable network. However, the IMD
data have been rescaled to conform to the long-term
means of the respective subdivisions in the IITM-IMR
dataset.
All other datasets used for identifying predictors
are monthly NCEP/NCAR reanalysis at the NOAA-
CIRES Climate Diagnostic Centre website for the period
1961–2004 with spatial resolution of 2.5° longitude and
latitude except sea surface temperature, which has a
spatial resolution of 1.875° in longitude and 94 levels
in latitude. The parameters include surface parameters
(sea surface temperature and surface sensible heat net
flux) and multilevel parameters (specific humidity, rela-
tive humidity, zonal and Meridional components of hor-
izontal wind and geopotential height). Specific humidity
and relative humidity data are taken for eight verti-
cal levels. Horizontal wind components and geopoten-
tial heights are used for 17 levels. All the parameters
in the study are established to be related to rainfall of
different regions of the globe, but all are not necessar-
ily shown to be related to rainfall and its variability in
India.
Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society
825
3. Methods
Linear regression model is a popular statistical method
for meteorological prediction on various timescales like
inter-annual, intra-seasonal, monthly, weekly etc. The
main task of the development of the regression model
includes the selection of predictors based on empirical
relations between various parameters and rainfall, their
careful and optimum selection in a stepwise regression
analysis, formulation of the regression equation and veri-
fication on independent samples. Here, good predictive
skill of linear regression model is achieved by care-
ful selection of predictors and model building steps, as
described below:
3.1. Selecting predictors
The KSMR was taken for the period 1961–1994, which
we refer to as training period. Spatial correlation coef-
ficient (CC) were calculated between KSMR and the
set of parameters under consideration for the period
1961–1994. The areas that bear CC’s at 1% level of
significance were identified and selected for calculating
indices by taking area averages of the parameter over
the respective significant area (Figure 2(a) and (b)). The
CC’s of these indices with KSMR were checked for
consistency for the entire period of analysis by doing
21-year sliding window correlation (Bell, 1977). Indices
that have a significant CC at 5% level in all the 21-
year sliding windows were retained. Thus, a total of
18 predictors were selected as the input to the stepwise
regression analysis and are listed in Table I. Stepwise
regression analysis was employed to reduce the dimen-
sionality of these indices (Draper and Smith, 1981). Thus,
the extensive basic predictor set is reduced to a candi-
date set by eliminating those with less influence in the
variance of rainfall. The variables thus selected were,
(1) specific humidity at 300 hPa during November over
the south central Indian Ocean southwest of Australia,
(2) surface sensible heat net flux during August over the
west Siberian Plain, (3) relative humidity at 600 hPa dur-
ing August over the Central Russian Upland, (4) zonal
wind at 70 hPa in November over the South Pacific
Ocean, (5) meridional wind at 925 hPa during October
over Europe, (6) zonal wind at 10 hPa over Eurasia dur-
ing March and (7) geopotential height of 250 hPa during
June over the south-central Pacific Ocean. The details
of the selected predictors are tabulated in Table II. All
the predictors selected were for the previous year of the
monsoon season except zonal wind at 10 hPa. The corre-
lation maps of the selected variables with the KSMR are
shown (Figure 2(a) and (b)). The shaded areas have CC’s
significant at 1%, and the selected areas are marked (rect-
angles in Figure 2(a) and (b)). The other shaded areas
in the figures were not considered, as they do not sat-
isfy the criteria for selection (covering large areas to
take an index and persistant correlation in a 21-year
CC). Figure 3. gives the 21-year sliding correlation of
the seven selected parameters. The selected parameters
Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
826 L. R. NAYAGAM ET AL

Figure 2. (a) Spatial correlation of the Kerala Summer Monsoon

Rainfall with predictor parameters (A) Specific humidity of previous
November at 300 hPa, (B) Surface net heat flux, (C) Relative humidity
of previous August at 600 hPa. Shaded areas have CC’s significant
at 1% level. Box indicates the areas selected for making indices.
Others do not satisfy the criteria. (b) Same as Figure 2(a), but for
(D) Zonal wind of previous November at 70 hPa, (E) Meridional wind
of previous October at 925 hPa, (F) Zonal wind of March at 10 hPa,
(G) Geopotential height of previous June at 250 hPa.
Figure 2. (Continued).

were at least 2 months prior to the monsoon season and residuals are not independent the statistical viability tests
hence have predictive value. are not valid. The Durbin–Watson statistic can be used
Multiple linear regression requires a few necessary to see if the assumption is violated. It is defined as
assumptions. They are the model form, independence of
residuals, homoscedasticity and normality of residuals.

n
(et − et−1 )2
The first one is related to the form of the relationship
t=2
of the forecast variable with the explanatory variable. DW = (1)


n
If the form is incorrect the forecast and the F-test and et 2
confidence interval will not be valid. The second is if the t=1

Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
 SEASONAL PREDICTION OF RAINFALL OVER KERALA, INDIA
where, et is the residual at the time t and et−1 that at time
t − 1. The third is on the constant variance property of
the residuals. The fourth is the normal distribution of the
errors, which means that no residuals should lie very far
from the mean distribution. If all these assumptions were
held for the data under consideration the multiple lin-
ear regression would provide good forecasts (Makridakis
et al., 1998). Here in this analysis, the identification of
parameters is done by linear correlation analysis. So, the
model form is kept linear though the atmospheric pro-
cesses are not linear. All other assumptions are evaluated
and reasonably held good (figures not included).
The inter-correlation between the predictors leads to
multi-co-linearity, i.e. the parameters are non-orthogonal.
Thus, a multiple linear regression model lacks in its
accuracy and may lead to unclear interpretation of the
regression coefficients as measures of original effects
(Mc Cuen, 1985). It imposes the problem of redun-
dancy and unnecessary loss of degrees of freedom when
they are used in large numbers (Krishna Kumar et al.,
1995). Moreover the coefficients would be unstable in
the sense that small data revisions could have a dispro-
portionate effect on the calculated coefficients, and thus,
the prediction. In order to reduce this and to increase
the reliability of these parameters in the prediction, the
multi-co-linearity is studied by the variance inflation fac-
tor (VIF) method (Fox, 1991) (Table III). It is defined as:
1
VIF (ai ) = (2)
1 − R2i
where Ri2 is the unadjusted R 2 when Xi is regressed
against all the other explanatory variables in the model.
The VIF measures how much the variance of the esti-
mated regression coefficients are inflated compared to
situations when the independent variables are uncorre-
lated. Values in excess of 10.0 could significantly affect
the stability of the regression coefficients (Neter et al.,
1990). So, the candidates having a smaller VIF only
are considered so that the parameters inhibiting inter-
dependence is avoided to increase the credibility of the
regression output. The Durbin–Watson statistic checks
the significance of the assumption that the residuals for
successive observations are uncorrelated. Its value ranges
from 0 to 4. Values above 2 indicate that there exists some
negative autocorrelation and values below 2 a positive
autocorrelation. If there exists any kind of significant lag
one autocorrelation, then the assumption of independence
of residuals is violated and the model can be improved
further (Makridakis et al., 1998).
3.2. Formulation of regression equation
From among these refined candidate predictors, various
regression models were formulated with the following
general form using different iteration schemes.


n not expressed in standardized form. Unless the input
 
Rj = a0 + ai Xij + εj (3)
i=1
Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society
827
where, Rj is the dependent variable (rainfall in our
case) for j = 1 to m equal time steps and Xij are
the independent variables where i is the number of
predictors. ao and ai are model constants and εj the error
value in that estimation.
The optimum number of predictors in a statistical
regression model has been a matter of debate. There are
studies (Wilks, 1995; Delsole and Shukla, 2002) which
recommend that the predictors should be restricted to
as small a number as possible. Some studies advocate
that 8–10 predictors are required for explaining a good
amount of variation (70–75%) in the model development
period and also limiting the root mean square error
(RMSE) of the results over the independent period to
a minimum (Rajeevan et al., 2004). Here, the stepwise
regression has restricted the number of predictors to 7,
as the variance explained by the rest is not significant.
The performance of the model has been evaluated
by using CC, RMSE, ABSE and BIAS for (1) training
period, (2) test period. Equations used to calculate these
measures are given below (Nicholls, 1984; Hastenrath,
1987) :


n
RMSE = [ (R̂y − Ry )2 /n]1/2 (4)
y=1


n
BIAS = (R̂y − Ry )/n (5)
y=1
n 


 
ABSE = R̂y − Ry  /n (6)
y=1
Where R̂y is the model-fitted rainfall, Ry is the
observed rainfall and n, the number of years.
The accuracy of the model forecast for the training
period was also compared with the model based on cli-
matology (average of rainfall for the period 1961–1994,
the training period).
4. Results
The analysis led to the identification of many parameters,
which are potential predictors for the KSMR. All of the
statistical tests imply that the parameters entered in the
model are good predictors of the rainfall. The final form
of the regression model is
Y = 2841.2(X1 ) + 13.8(X2 ) + 17.3(X3 ) + 40.1(X4 )
+ 76.1(X5 ) + 15.6(X6 ) + 4.3(X7 ) − 47 632.3 (7)
where Xs are the predictors (Table I) and Y the pre-
dicted rainfall. The regression coefficients in the model
show disproportionate values because the predictors were
parameters into the regression model are standardized, the
regression coefficients do not imply relative importance.
Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
828 L. R. NAYAGAM ET AL

Table I. Details of predictors used for the stepwise regression analysis.

Parameter Label Level Month CC Area

(1961–1994)

Specific humidity SH300No 300mb Nov (−1) 0.642 80E–120E, 30–40S

Sensible heat flux SHFAu Surface Aug (−1) 0.640 60–80E, 60–70N
Meridional wind V850Ja 850mb Jan 0.645 0–20E, 20–50S
Relative humidity RH600Au 600mb Aug (−1) 0.612 30–50E, 45–60N
Meridional wind V925Ja 925mb Jan 0.612 0–20E, 20–50S
Zonal wind U70No 70mb Nov (−1) 0.590 60–120W, 30–50S
Meridional wind V700Ja 700mb Jan 0.626 0–20E, 20–50S
Zonal wind U50No 50mb Nov (−1) 0.562 60–120W, 30–50S
Meridional wind V20No 20mb Nov (−1) −0.596 30–90W, 30–60S
Meridional wind V30No 30mb Nov (−1) −0.606 30–90W, 30–60S
Meridional wind V925Oc 925mb Oct (−1) 0.556 10–40E, 30–55N
Zonal wind U10Ma 10mb Mar 0.519 0–60E, 35–50N
Zonal wind U20Ma 20mb Mar 0.505 20–70E, 30–55N
Zonal wind U30Ma 30mb Mar 0.510 20–70E, 30–55N
Sea surface temperature SSTAu Surface Aug (−1) 0.503 130E–150W,5–30N
Sea surface temperature SSTJu1 Surface Jun (−1) 0.454 10–50W, 30–40S
Geopotential height Ht 250Ju 250mb Jun (−1) 0.458 170E–120W,10–25S
Sea surface temperature SSTJu2 Surface Jun (−1) 0.354 65–80E, 5–20N

Table II. Details of predictors obtained after the stepwise regression analysis.

Parameter Level Month CC Area

(1961–2004)

Specific humidity 300 mb Nov (−1) 0.642 80–120E, 30–40S

Sensible heat net flux Surface Aug (−1) 0.626 60–80E, 60–70N
Relative humidity 600 mb Aug (−1) 0.609 30–50E, 45–60N
Zonal wind 70 mb Nov (−1) 0.562 60–120W, 30–50S
Meridional wind 925 mb Oct (−1) 0.469 10–40E, 30–55N
Zonal wind 10 mb Mar 0.443 0–60E, 35–50N
Geopotential height 250 mb Jun (−1) 0.316 170E–120W, 10–25S

The VIF analysis of all the parameters that is retained (which is the proportion of variation in the dependant
in the stepwise regression have values around 1.5 indicat- variable explained by the regression model) of 88.8%
ing an insignificant level of multi-co-linearity (Table III). and a multiple correlation coefficient of 0.943. The F
The relationship between each pair of variables can be statistic, which tests the significance of regression model,
visualized on a scatter matrix plot (Figure 4). Each col- gives F = 29.561 and the P value in the analysis of
umn shows the relationship between the parameter listed variance (ANOVA) test is very small (<0.0005). This
in that column with the other seven parameters named in strongly suggests that the included predictors collectively
the respective rows. The variable on the vertical axis is account for a significant part of the variance in the
the variable named in that row and the variable on the KSMR.
horizontal axis is the variable contained in that column.
The correlation coefficients between the dependent vari-
Table III. The t-test results and variance inflation factor corre-
able and seven independent variables are listed atop the
sponding to the variables.
columns. From the figure it can be seen that the KSMR
is positively related to all the parameters, while the inde- Variables Sig. of VIF
pendent parameters do not show much relation among t-test
themselves though feeble relations exist. The plot does
not exhibit any noticeable pattern and this implies that Specific humidity 0.085 1.677
the predictors are practically independent. So the interde- Sensible heat flux 0.007 1.496
pendencies among the predictors, if any, are well below Relative humidity 0.037 1.623
the potential to affect the forecast. When the t-test is Zonal wind 0.001 1.256
conducted, the P values indicate that the coefficients Meridional wind 0.004 1.306
Zonal wind 0.001 1.292
of all the predictors in regression are highly significant
Geopotential height 0.008 1.194
(Table III). The model has a coefficient of determination

Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
 SEASONAL PREDICTION OF RAINFALL OVER KERALA, INDIA
Figure 3. Twenty-one-year sliding window correlations of the seven parameters in the model with Kerala summer monsoon rainfall for the period
1964–1994. Central year of the 21-year period is shown.
Climatological predictions are made and the RMSE,
BIAS and ABSE were also computed. The RMSE, BIAS
and ABSE for the climatological predictions are 17.90,
−5.40 and 15.16% of mean rainfall, respectively. For
the model development period the CC was 0.94, RMSE
was 6.60%, BIAS was −0.26% and ABSE was 5.33%
of mean rainfall. For the test period the CC is 0.60,
which is also statistically significant. When the CC was
recalculated for the period 1961–2004, it was found that
the CC has dropped to 0.87 (significant at 1% level). The
RMSE for the test period has increased to 15.80% of
mean rainfall. BIAS and ABSE for the predicted rainfall
are 6.20 and 13.15% of mean rainfall, respectively. In
most cases, the model error is less than half of the
standard deviation (SD 368.58 mm) of observed rainfall.
Of the 44 years, only in three years was the error more
than the standard deviation. The forecast and the observed
are closely related with a correlation, significant at 1%
level.
Figure 5. gives the standardized departures of the
KSMR and its forecast. The model could capture the
sign of the anomaly of extremes (±1 standard deviation)
during these 44 years. The wet (dry) years are classified
as years with rainfall greater (less) than 1 standard
deviation. The model could represent the extreme events,
including 2002 (dry year) in which other models failed.
Thus the model is good to predict extreme cases too.
The KSMR has a standard deviation of 368.58 mm,
which is 19.69% of the mean rainfall (1871.3 mm). This
is twice that of the AISMR with a standard deviation
of 10.4% (86.72 mm). This clearly indicates the need
for a new model to predict the KSMR. The forecast of
the model presented here, picks a standard deviation of
18.62% (348.50 mm) of the mean rainfall. Thus, both the
mean (1893.95, 1871.3 mm) and the standard deviations
(348.50, 368.58 mm) of the forecast are comparable with
the observed. This statistics shows that the inter-annual
variability of the KSMR is well represented by this
model.
The standardized departures of the actual and model
fitted rainfall shows 7 years (1964, 79, 80, 82, 95, 96 and
Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society
829
2003) with the departure of the model forecast opposite
to that of actual rainfall (Figure 5). But over most of the
years the observed values are very close to the mean so
that a small deviation of the forecast from the observed
rainfall may end up with an opposite sign of the anomaly.
Moreover, none of these years were extreme and they
lie within the range of one standard deviation of normal
monsoon. The model showed the maximum departure for
the year 1995.
Scatter plots of residuals with the predictors and fitted
values (figure not shown), helps us to visualize the
patterns in the residuals. If some organized pattern is
present it means that there exists some relation between
the fitted values and the residuals so that the model can
be further improved by extracting the relationship. It was
noted that they do not bear a pattern with the fitted values.
The relationship in the residuals is also checked using
Durbin–Watson statistics. This gives a value of 2.099,
which suggests that the lag 1 autocorrelation is negligibly
small in the residuals.
5. Discussions and Conclusion
Only a few have attempted to predict the rainfall on
smaller scales, as the variability of rainfall is high and the
stability of predictors are less. In this work, an attempt
has been made to predict the rainfall over a subdivision
of India, for which only highly correlated parameters
are selected. These analyses and observations led to the
formulation of a new regression model which is a first
attempt for Kerala, a meteorological subdivision in India,
could capture the sign of the extremes in the rainfall, like
those in the years 1997, 2002 and 2004. The percentage
of the variation in rainfall that can be explained by the
regression equation is 88.8%, useful for the prediction of
the KSMR.
Researchers have mentioned that the need for mak-
ing long-range forecasts compel them to derive empir-
ical relations between various phenomena of the ocean
atmosphere system though a physical relationship is
not well understood. However, such empirical relations
Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
830 L. R. NAYAGAM ET AL

Figure 4. Scatter plot matrix of the KSMR and predictor variables. The variable on the vertical axis is the variable named in that row;
the variable on the horizontal axis is the variable named in that column. SH300No-specific humidity of previous November at 300 hPa,
SHFAu-surface sensible heat net flux, RH600Au-relative humidity of previous August at 600 hPa, U70No-Zonal wind of previous November
at 70 hPa, V925Oc-Meridional wind of previous October at 925 hPa, U10Ma-Zonal wind of March at 10 hPa and HT250Ju-geopotential height
of previous June at 250 hPa. Values on top of the columns represent the respective correlation coefficients of the KSMR with each predictor.
Bottom labels represent the units of the variables.

Figure 5. Standardized departures of the KSMR and model fitted values (1961–2004). The bar indicates the standardized departure of observed
rainfall and the line indicates the standardized departure of the model fitted rainfall. One unit corresponds to 368.6 mm of rainfall.

have unveiled some important processes in the atmo- provide some insight into the physical and dynamical pro-
sphere. It, therefore, seems desirable that the existence cesses beneath. The independent variables having lags as
of such empirical relations be discussed, for it may large as 7 months have been tried based on their highly

Copyright  2007 Royal Meteorological Society Int. J. Climatol. 28: 823–831 (2008)
DOI: 10.1002/joc
 SEASONAL PREDICTION OF RAINFALL OVER KERALA, INDIA
significant statistical persistence throughout the model
development period. Though the atmospheric variables
do not have such large climate memory to influence a pro-
cess after a few months, they may be having an influence
on some boundary parameters having a large memory,
which in turn may influence the subsequent processes.
According to Tang (2004) the memory mechanism of
land cannot compete with the ocean, but the atmosphere
acts as a bridge that connects the extratropical parame-
ters with the summer precipitation in different regions.
The impact is similar to the effect of boundary variables
such as sea surface temperature and soil moisture. So,
further detailed analysis is needed to clearly identify the
causative relations of the predictors identified with the
predictant and the physical reasons behind them.
New approaches that include non-linear relationships
and dynamical variables from model simulations can be
included in the existing statistical models to improve
the skill of the models. A better prediction is possible
by a better understanding of the processes underlying
air-sea interaction and identification of new predictors
that are stable with the advance of time and captures
the high variability of the subdivisional rainfall. In this
conjuncture, we have to rely on statistical models for the
forecasts of monsoon, with the continual updating of the
models.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported under the University Grants
Commission Special Assistance Programme (UGC SAP-
115) to the Department. The authors are grateful to
Dr D. S. Pai, Director, LRF Division, IMD, Pune,
for the benefit of several useful discussions. We thank
Prof. Jon Ahlquist of Florida State University, and
Mark R. Jury, Department of Geography, University of
Zululand for their valuable suggestions. The authors are
thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable
comments.
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DOI: 10.1002/joc