  What is the role of soil moisture in maintaining the land ITCZ during the
active phase of the monsoon? This question has been addressed in this study by
using ERA5 reanalysis datasets, and then we evaluate the question in the CFS
model-free run. Like rainfall, soil moisture also show intraseasonal
oscillation. Furthermore, the sub-seasonal and seasonal features of soil
moisture are different from each other. During the summer monsoon season, the
maximum soil moisture is found over western coastal regions, central parts of
India, and the northeastern Indian subcontinent. However, during active phases
of the monsoon, the maximum positive soil moisture anomaly was found in North
West parts of India. soil moisture also play a pre-conditioning role during
active phases of the monsoon over the monsoon core zone of India. When it is
further divided into two boxes, the north monsoon core zone, and the south
monsoon core zone, it is found that the preconditioning depends on that
region's soil type and climate classification. Also, we calculate the moist
static energy (MSE) budget during the monsoon phases to show how soil moisture
feedback affects the boundary layer MSE and rainfall. A similar analysis is
applied to the model run, but it cannot show the realistic preconditioning role
of soil moisture and its feedback on the rainfall as in observations. We
conclude that to get proper feedback between soil moisture and precipitation
during the active phase of the monsoon in the model, the pre-conditioning of
soil moisture should be realistic.
