Abstract Our ability to predict active and break periods of the Asian summer monsoon is intimately tied to our ability to predict the intraseasonal oscillation (ISO). The present study analyzes the upper limit of potential predictability of the northern summer ISO, as it is simulated by the ECHAM5 atmospheric general circulation model forced with climatological SSTs. The leading extended empirical orthogonal functions of precipitation, computed from a 10-yr control simulation, are used to define four different phases of the ISO. Fourteen-member ensembles of 90-day hindcasts are run for each phase of the three strongest ISO events identified in the 10-yr control run. Initial conditions for each ensemble are created from the control simulation using a breeding method. The signal-to-noise ratio is analyzed over a region that covers the core of the Asian summer monsoon activity. Over Southeast Asia, the upper limit for predictability of precipitation and 200-hPa zonal wind is about 27 and 33 days, respectively. Over India, values of more than 15 days occur for both variables. A spatial analysis of the different phases of the ISO reveals that the predictability follows the eastward- and northward-propagating ISO during the active and break phases of the monsoon. Precipitation reveals increased predictability at the end of the convective phase. Analogous, 200-hPa zonal wind shows strongest predictability during low and easterly anomalies. This potential predictability is considerably higher than for numerical forecasts of typical weather variations, particularly for the Tropics, indicating that useful forecasts of monsoon active and break events may be possible with lead times of more than two weeks for precipitation and the dynamics. A closer look at the breeding method used here to initialize the hindcasts shows the importance of appropriate ensemble experiment designs.