``Good kharif rains mean that the residual moisture has soaked into the soil. This would signal that the prospects for rabi crops will be brighter,'' said R R Kelkar, Director General of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD).

According to the end-of-the-season assessment of this year's monsoon season, nine-tenths of the country received excess to normal rainfall.

Only two sub-divisions, Orissa and East Madhya Pradesh, recorded deficient rainfall of minus 25 per cent respectively. Punjab, Haryana, plains of West UP including the capital region and parts of Gujarat, Marathwada, Madhya Maharashtra, North and South Interior Karnataka and coastal Andhra Pradesh.

``We are very happy with the overall monsoon performance,'' said Kelkar, adding that the rainfall distribution tallied with the annual long-range forecast that theIMD had made in May 1998, before the onset of the monsoon.

The IMD is now working on four major areas of weather forecasting for the short term, zeroing in with more precise forecasts for smaller regions, over a shorter time-frame, forecasting the rabi season rains and north-eastern monsoon rainfall, Kelkar said.

The period between June 1 and September 30 is regarded as the monsoon season. This year the country received 106 per cent of its long period average rainfall during the season. The monsoon has begun withdrawing from different parts of the country.

Using the four criteria, excess, normal, deficient and scanty, the sub-divisional rainfall distribution is tabulated. There was subdued rainfall activity in north and central parts of the country during the first fortnight of August, but the deficiency was made up thereafter except over Orissa and East Madhya Pradesh.

By the end of the monsoon season, the cumulative seasonal rainfall was excess in 13 and normal in 20 out of 35 meteorologicalsub-divisions, covering 89 per cent area of the country.

The Met office has also taken into account the effects of El Nino, the extensive warming of the upper ocean in the tropical eastern Pacific, which has a profound effect on global weather patterns, as one of the 16 parameters that it employs to calculate the monsoon forecast.

The sea surface temperatures off Peru-Ecuador coast which have a ``teleconnection'' with the Indian summer monsoon rainfall, started cooling from May 1998 onwards. ``By the end of August, these were still about 1.2 C warmer than the normal,'' the IMD said.