32% rain deficit in July first half but brace for partial revival of monsoon

July rainfall for the country as a whole is 32 per cent below normal with large tracts of central and southern India staying dry with shortfall of 54 per cent and 60 per cent respectively.

This may have serious impact on pulses and oilseeds production unless monsoon revives in the second half of the month, says Naveen Mathur, Associate Director, Commodities and Currencies, Angel Broking.

After all, July is the rainiest month of the four-month season, Mathur told BusinessLine . Between July 9 and July 15, the rainfall recorded for the country as a whole is 14 per cent below normal.

Central India, southern India and north-east India received below normal rainfall of 32 per cent, 39 per cent and 15 per cent respectively while northwest India received 28 per cent above normal rainfall.

After covering the country in June, the monsoon went into a lag in July. The Met Department data shows that the monsoon is six per cent below normal for the country as a whole till date (June 1 to July 15).

The region-wise rainfall status is: East and North-East India (six per cent deficit); North-West India (excess of 15 per cent); Central India (deficit of 13 per cent) and South peninsula (deficit of 12 per cent).

Prognosis for the next week doesn’t promise much either. Enhanced rainfall activity would be confined to coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Konkan and Goa, western Himalayas, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh.

Fairly widespread rainfall may break out over northwest India, Odisha, Haryana, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

But it would be subdued over many parts of the west – Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and adjoining central India and interior peninsula across Telangana, Rayalseema, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

Meanwhile, the partial revival of the monsoon is dependent on a low-pressure area shaping up in the northwest Bay of Bengal.

On Friday, though, the Met chose to extend the window by a day to Sunday apparently in view of resistance from an incoming western disturbance.

Forecasts indicate that the ‘low’ would in fact prevail and go on to set up an interaction with the westerly system over the Gangetic plains.

This would lead to a sudden spurt of rain over Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and east Rajasthan until July 22.

Enhanced flows directed from the Arabian Sea would dump heavy rainfall over the West Coast – Konkan and Goa, coastal Karnataka and Kerala – if not much into the interior.

Meanwhile, the rain deficit for the country as a whole till date (June 1 to July 17) deteriorated to seven per cent on Friday.