There is currently a good low-level westerly monsoon flow across the northern Indian Ocean between about 5 and 20 N (see the current low-level analysis on my webpage).

The monsoon is currently in an active state as measured by OLR activity.  This can be seen on the time-latitude  strip of OLR averaged over 60-90E, taken from the NOAA CDC maproom and reproduced on my web-page. As that strip shows, there is active convection (cold OLR) extending from 10S to 20N, and by comparison with the last 12 months, clearly fits in to the active-break cycle in this region.

Looking at the current satellite image, there is a mass of convection across the Bay of Bengal, and across the equator west of Sumatra.  The convection across the region shows cirrus blow-off to the west indicating a  well-developed upper level easterly stream.

Looking at Matt Wheeler's MJO diagnostics (http://www.bom.gov.au/bmrc/clfor/cfstaff/matw/maproom/OLR_modes/h.6.ALL.EQ.html), the monsoon active region is large enough in area and moving slowly enough  to be diagnosed as an MJO event, but in the 20 or so days it has been in this location it has shown negligible eastward movement.

The most recent large scale intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) type event was the major westerly wind burst event which traversed the region during May ---see the equatorial hovmoller of zonal-wind anomalies on my web-page (again lifted from a Matt Wheeler page).  That event has left  westerly anomalies (meaning weaker than normal trades) across the eastern Pacific and an easterly anomaly over the equatorial Indian Ocean which has broken down just in the last few days.

Referring again to the low-level analysis (at the top of the page on my web-page discussion),  there are the remains of the Baiu front across the northern part of the South China Sea, as we discussed last week.  The major/southern part of the South china Sea has a very weak flow with no developed southwest monsoon there as yet.  This is probably anomalously late, consistent with the easterlies anomalies that still linger over that region.

I'll finish up with a little demonstration that the atmosphere is indeed  a thing of beauty, a joy forever:  have a look at the current GOES West satellite image of the eastern pacific on my web-page:  Isn't that ITCZ along 10 N beautiful?  The various analyses I can find for that region are not quite consistent; but I think the feature is associated with a strong band of trade easterlies across the Pacific between 10 and 20N with a sharp southern edge at 10N, hence a line of -partialU/partial-y cyclonic vorticity.

We have a bunch of people in monsoon countries on this list.  I would encourage them to add observations from their own perspective.  For example, how is the West African  monsoon doing?  What agricultural/planting decisions need to be made (Ahkilesh?), How is the salinity in the lower reaches of the Mekong (Phuong?)

cheers

John McBride