Southwest monsoon: no district has seen shortfall in Karnataka

The Krishnaraja Sagar, which is full to the brim now like many of the reservoirs in the State.

The southwest monsoon, which is now on its last spell before retreating, has been more than bountiful this year and no district has come under the deficit category. The rainfall pattern from June 1 to September 25 indicates that 10 districts received ‘normal’ rain, 19 received ‘excess’ rain, and one received ‘large excess’ rain, according to India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) classification.

Large excess is defined as 60% above the long-term average or normal; excess rainfall is 20% to 59% above normal; and normal has a wide range that is 19% below to 19% above the long-term average. Deficit is when the rainfall is 20% to 59% below normal. Based on this, Chitradurga district comes under large excess as it received 489 mm of rain, which is 90% above its normal, as per the analysis of Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC). The entire North Karnataka belt and Uttara Kannada, Tumakuru, Kolar, Chickballapur, Bengaluru Rural, Bengaluru Urban, and Chamarajanagar districts are under excess category. The districts known to receive very heavy rains, including the coastal region of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi, Kodagu, Shivamogga, Chikkamagaluru, Hassan, Haveri, Mandya, and Ramanagaram districts, have been clubbed under the normal category.

The monthly rainfall pattern for September also indicates a similar trend and 14 districts have come under large excess category, with rainfall being 60% above normal for the period. This covers the entire central Karnataka region, the coastal belt, Kodagu and Malnad region. Five districts have received excess rain (20% to 59% above normal) and 11 spread across the south and north Karnataka regions have been classified under normal category for September. Not a single district is under the deficit category.

In terms of actual rainfall measured in millimetres, Udupi district has received 4,543 mm of rain, followed by Uttara Kannada which received 3,177 mm and Dakshina Kannada that received 3,165 mm of rain between June 1 and September 25.

Though Kodagu saw major landslips and flooding, throwing life out of gear, it received 2,058 mm of rain, which is 5% below its long-term average. The bulk of the damage is attributed to the heavy rainfall that happened for a few days in the second week of August.

Storage in reservoirs up

The gross storage capacity across all the dams in the Krishna basin — comprising Narayanapura, Almatti, Malaprabha, Ghataprabha, Tungabhadra, and Bhadra dams — is 417.52 tmc ft. The current storage is 414.84 tmc ft, which is almost 99% of the capacity. In the Cauvery basin, against a gross storage capacity of 114.57 tmc ft, the current storage is 112.17 tmc ft (98%).