Despite heavy flooding in parts of the country in July, monsoon rains across the country are 3% deficient (the meter starts June 1), primarily on account of the increasingly patchy, skewed rainfall pattern of the monsoon in recent years, and the 11% deficiency recorded in June.
Overall, there is a 12% rain deficiency over northwest India; 10% over east and northeast India; 4% deficiency over central India; but 19% excess over Peninsular India. July has thus far seen 4.7% excess rain but most of the rainfall seems to have been concentrated over Peninsular India which recorded 25% excess rain during the month. In July, northwest India recorded 1.1%; central India, 5.9% excess; and east and northeast India 5.4% excess.
A little over a fourth of the India Meteorological Department’s 36 meteorological divisions continue to record “deficient” rain.
Meteorologists are hoping that the deficiency will be wiped out by the end of July. On July 1, IMD forecast a very active monsoon over the country in July with rainfall estimated at 106% of Long Period Average. The LPA of rainfall over the country as a whole during July based on data from 1971-2020 is about 280.4 mm.
“No system has formed over northwest India so there have been several dry days. Entire Indo Gangetic Plains region has been dry for four to five days. We cannot say that distribution will improve; the deficit in certain areas will continue but the overall deficit may be wiped out by the end of the month because another low pressure area is likely to form and bring heavy and widespread rain to central India. Rain has been very patchy in July also ,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president, climate and meteorology at Skymet Weather.
{{/usCountry}}“No system has formed over northwest India so there have been several dry days. Entire Indo Gangetic Plains region has been dry for four to five days. We cannot say that distribution will improve; the deficit in certain areas will continue but the overall deficit may be wiped out by the end of the month because another low pressure area is likely to form and bring heavy and widespread rain to central India. Rain has been very patchy in July also ,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president, climate and meteorology at Skymet Weather.
{{/usCountry}}“July was not as good as expected but in the next week it will rain more. This deficiency should go away. There’s no need for panic,” said M Rajeevan, former secretary, ministry of earth sciences.
“We are hoping that with the formation of the low pressure area in Central and adjoining North Bay of Bengal and its expected movement northwestwards, the deficiency may be reduced. As forecast by us, rainfall in July is above normal. We should wait till the end of July to see distribution status,” said M Mohapatra, director general, IMD.
To be sure, the numbers highlight the diminishing utility of aggregates that IMD continues to use to classify the monsoon as normal or otherwise. A skewed distribution pattern with the aggregate being made up by a few days of heavy rain or extremely heavy rain could actually be counterproductive -- hurting farmers and flooding cities.