UPSC Prelims Practice Questions — IMD curtails its forecast for southwest monsoon, pushes onset date to June

Q1. The Long Range Forecast for the southwest monsoon, expressed as a percentage of the Long Period Average (LPA), is issued for the country by which one of the following?

  • A. India Meteorological Department
  • B. Central Water Commission
  • C. National Remote Sensing Centre
  • D. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services

Q2. Under IMD's objective criteria for declaring the onset of the southwest monsoon over Kerala, onset is considered if, after 10 May, at least 60% of a designated set of stations report 2.5 mm or more rainfall on two consecutive days. How many stations are in this designated set?

  • A. 14
  • B. 8
  • C. 10
  • D. 20

Q3. The official declaration of the onset of the southwest monsoon over Kerala is made by which one of the following?

  • A. India Meteorological Department
  • B. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare
  • C. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services
  • D. National Disaster Management Authority

Q4. The dynamical Monsoon Mission model used to track ENSO conditions for India's operational seasonal forecast was developed by which institution under the Ministry of Earth Sciences?

  • A. Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune
  • B. National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, Noida
  • C. Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, Hyderabad
  • D. National Institute of Oceanography, Goa

Q5. The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), used alongside ENSO in IMD's monsoon outlook, is conventionally described as having how many phases?

  • A. Exactly 3
  • B. Exactly 2
  • C. Exactly 4
  • D. Exactly 5

Q6. The India Meteorological Department functions as an office under which one of the following Union ministries?

  • A. Ministry of Earth Sciences
  • B. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
  • C. Ministry of Science and Technology
  • D. Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare

Q7. The sowing of kharif crops such as paddy and maize across most of India commences with which one of the following meteorological events?

  • A. Onset of the southwest monsoon in June
  • B. Withdrawal of the southwest monsoon in September–October
  • C. Onset of the northeast monsoon in October
  • D. Pre-monsoon (Nor'wester) thundershowers in April