Possible teleconnections of winter rainfall in southern Brazil with Indianmonsoon activity

Three homogeneous subregions of rainfall anomaly are identified in southern Brazil from the precipitation data for the months of June to September for the period 1960-1993. The area average monthly rainfall of these regions i s correlated with the Indian monsoon rainfall index (MRI). The correlations are weak; however some significant negative correlation coefficients of th e order of 0.3 or higher are found, indicating that more than normal monsoo n activity in July has an effect of reducing the rainfall in southern Brazi l in austral winter. The relevance of this result lies in the fact that any rainfall shortage in the midwinter and spring seasons can increase ambient al hazards such as forest fires.