E-Paper
Uttar Pradesh 28% rain deficit as monsoon withdraws
This year, only five districts recorded excess rainfall and 17 normal while 53 others remained rain deficit.
As the southwest monsoon officially came to an end in the country on Friday, the rain deficit in Uttar Pradesh stood at 28%, including 30% in East UP and 25% in West UP, according to India Meteorological Department (IMD) data.
In the monsoon season from June 1 to September 30 this year, the state recorded 533.8 mm of rainfall against the normal 745 mm. Last year, it experienced 758 mm average of rain in the corresponding period, due to which the rain deficit stood at 5%.
Lucknow Met director JP Gupta said, “Considering the fact that there was hardly any rain in June and fewer spells in the first fortnight of July, U.P. experienced reasonably decent rainfall activity this year.”
This year, only five districts recorded excess rainfall and 17 normal while 53 others remained rain deficit. The five districts that recorded excess rainfall are Chitrakoot (59% over normal), Etah (38%), Deoria (29%), Auraiya (22%) and Firozabad (21%).
Chitrakoot recorded 1,248.4 mm of rains, Etah 698.2 mm, Deoria 1,000 mm and Auraiya 626.9 mm.
The 17 UP districts that saw normal monsoon are Lucknow, Balrampur, Barabanki, Kheri, Pratapgarh, Santravidasnagar, Sonbhadra, Varanasi, Agra, Badaun, Etawah, Hamirpur, Jalaun, Jhansi, Lalitpur, Mahamayanagar and Muzaffarnagar
Meanwhile, Farrukhabad, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Ghaziabad and Kushinagar recorded 75%, 73%, 70% and 63% deficit rains, respectively. Farrukhabad received only 182.3 mm rainfall against the normal of 725.6 mm rain.
This year, India as a whole recorded around 7% excess rainfall, making 2022 an “above normal” season. This is the fourth consecutive year that India’s monsoon has been in the “normal” or “above normal” category. This year’s monsoon was characterised by erratic rain, particularly towards the end of the season. The final two weeks of September, a period which generally experiences the weakest leg of the monsoon, saw heavy rainfall in a majority of northwest India.
The states where rain deficit is the highest this year are Uttar Pradesh (28%), Bihar (31%), Jharkhand (21%), Manipur (47%), Mizoram (22%) and Tripura (24%).
