India’s drought concerns eases on monsoon’s satisfactory performance

NEW DELHI: It hasn’t washed away the fears of deficit rainfall, but the monsoon’s satisfactory performance so far has sharply reduced the possibility of a second consecutive drought in the country this year.

In a drought year, average nationwide rainfall is at least 10 per cent below normal. As of now, almost halfway into the rainy season, the monsoon is 2 per cent below average, still within the normal range of 96 per cent-104 per cent.

From here on, a countrywide drought would occur only if rains are more than 14 per cent below average for the rest of the monsoon season. Given that overall meteorological conditions have been adverse for rains in India because of the El Nino factor, monsoon has so far been better than expected.

What’s been good for kharif sowing is the wide distribution of rains, with every region having received one or two good wet spells. The latest round of monsoon activity, which began around July 6, brought heavy showers to the northern plains where rain deficit had been growing in the past couple of weeks.

“The spell of wet weather in the northern plains is expected to last another two-three days. After that, we do not see major monsoon activity except in east and northeast India, at least for the rest of the coming week,” said BP Yadav, director, India Meteorological Department.

As on Sunday, 11 of the 36 meteorological subdivisions had received deficient rains, which at that subdivisional level is defined as rains 20 per cent or more below normal. Most of these areas lie along the west coast and adjoining areas, apart from Rayalaseema in Andhra Pradesh and a clutch of states in the northeast. Many of these areas had received rains in June.

However, the danger of deficit rainfall for the rest of the season persists. Despite heavy rains in north India over the past week, the monsoon remains 28 per cent below normal in the month of July. This deficit could grow as the current rain spell weakens.

Typhoons usually take away energy from India’s southwest monsoon. However, some of these storms can also increase rains in country, if they head westwards towards the Bay of Bengal.

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Source:Timesofindia