South Asian Seasonal Climate Outlook Forum

South Asian nations, supported by the WMO, came together to establish the South Asian Seasonal Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF) in 2010. Since then, the SASCOF sessions are being organised every year before the summer monsoon season.

SASCOF gathers NMHSs of the South Asian region to prepare consensus seasonal climate outlook on regional scale, as guidance to the preparation of national level climate outlooks. User engagement from key sectors provides NMHS valuable feedback to understand user needs and enhance the use of climate information.

South Asia, however, also receives significant amounts of rainfall from October to February, when Southern parts of peninsular India, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Southern coastal areas of Myanmar are influenced by the Northeast monsoon, while the Northern parts of the region including Afghanistan, Pakistan, North India, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar are influenced by extra-tropical activity dominated by Western disturbances. In view of the important role of the winter rains, the need for holding winter SASCOF sessions has been recognized. In response to this, the winter SASCOF was initiated in 2015. UK Met currently supports this program.