Monsoon ends with 12% shortfall

As India marks the official end of the southwest monsoon on Tuesday, it is left with a 12 per cent shortfall in rainfall after a third of its territory witnessed deficient precipitation during the wet season.

The official season in India is between June 1 and September 30.

Retreating

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), monsoon is fast winding up and its withdrawal line passes through Jammu, Una, Bareilly, Kanpur, Nowgong, Ujjain, Vadodara and Porbandar. It is also active over Kerala.

Private forecast agency Skymet said only one sub-division, south interior Karnataka, received excess rainfall of 21 per cent. About 30 per cent of the country received deficient rainfall.

The IMD projected a “below normal” monsoon this year for India and the country received 775 mm rainfall as against the normal precipitation of 883 mm.

The onset of monsoon was weak, with June seeing a high rainfall deficit of 43 per cent.

However, conditions improved in July and August on the back of good spells of rain in the last two weeks of those months. The good rainfall in July, August and September helped limit the overall deficit to 12 per cent.

The northwest division, which includes eastern and western Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chandigarh and Haryana, saw a rain deficit of 21 per cent, the highest in the country.

The shortfall for the southern peninsula was 7 per cent. .