Scope, Limitations & Terms

What this is, and what it is not

Read this before citing, quoting, or acting on anything published here.

Nature of this material

No forecast is issued

Nothing on this site constitutes a weather or seasonal climate forecast. Outputs are population-level rates computed across historical seasons. They describe how often an outcome followed a given ocean state in the past. They do not predict any specific season, region, district, holding, or crop.

The India Meteorological Department is the operational authority for Indian monsoon forecasting. Where this material and IMD guidance differ, IMD guidance governs.

No clinical advice

Clinical concepts are used here as analogies for reasoning under uncertainty. Nothing on this site is medical advice, diagnostic guidance, or a treatment recommendation, and none of it should be applied to the care of any patient.

Author and credentials

Dr. D. C. Sundaravelan is an Independent Researcher and educator (PhD GATE/CSIR-SRF) and the founder of VELANS Clinical Intelligence. His work is in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic software for individualising dosage regimens of narrow-therapeutic-index drugs, a line of development begun in 1990.

Known limitations of the derived engine

  1. Small sample. Sixteen El Niño seasons in a 66-season window. Confidence intervals are correspondingly wide, and that width is reported rather than smoothed.
  2. All-India scope. Regional teleconnection strength varies substantially. National figures can conceal severe subdivisional deficits, as in 1997.
  3. Mixed data sources. Exposure from NOAA CPC; outcome from the IITM homogeneous rainfall series.
  4. Modifier terms are illustrative. IOD, North Atlantic, flavour and snow-cover adjustments carry literature-supported directions and invented magnitudes. They are off by default; enabling them flags the output as non-citable.
  5. Attribution is population-level. Attributable fractions describe rates across many seasons. They never license a claim that a particular drought was caused by El Niño.

The full derivation, sensitivity analysis, and recorded falsification are on the methods page.

Use, reuse, and liability

Reuse. The Hallmarks doctrine and the methods page may be quoted and cited with attribution. The citation format is given on the methods page. The Risk Translator is provided for professional use and is not licensed for redistribution or embedding.

Data. Underlying data are from public sources credited on the methods page and remain subject to their originators' terms.

No warranty. This material is provided as-is, for education and methodological demonstration, without warranty of any kind. No liability is accepted for any decision taken, or not taken, in reliance on it. Operational decisions affecting agriculture, water resources, procurement, or public safety must rest on official guidance.

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Corrections. Errors are welcome and will be documented in the changelog rather than silently amended. Contact details are on the access page.