‘Near-normal to below normal’ seems to be the call most weather models surveyed by Business Line like to take on monsoon this year.
After one month into circulation, the best piece of news is that the monsoon has managed to cover the landmass four days of ahead of schedule.
DELAYED START
How far can this drive it to achieve adequate spatial and temporal coverage – i.e. across time and space – and in desirable quantities? After a delayed onset on June 5, performance of the monsoon has been less than inspiring. Cumulative deficit has been assessed at 22 per cent on July 11.
This is only one per cent less than the end-season deficit during 2009, but the saving grace is that there are two months to go still.
One will be forgiven for drawing a comparison with 2009, the "the most recent El Nino year that bequeathed us the third-worst monsoon ever recorded and the worst after 1972.
The month of June that year had ended up with a deficit of 47.2 per cent (against 29 per cent this year).
But July came back strongly to being ‘normal’ (a deficit of just 4.3 per cent). But this year, as on July 11, the deficit is 22 per cent.
In fact, the week ending July 4 had left behind an alarming 49 per cent in deficit; fortunately, the monsoon later entered its most productive phase till date. Still, cumulative rain deficit of 22 per cent as on July 11 does not leave room for complacency. It is precisely why forecast outlook for August and September this year will count a lot.
There is an El Nino in the making this year, though experts differ on what impact it would have on the Indian monsoon. India Meteorological Department (IMD) believes the impact may not amount to much, but peer models across the world have sought to differ.
A comparison with year 2009 will be in order here, too.
LIKELY DEFICIT
After a near-normal July in 2009, both August and September totted up deficits of 26.5 per cent and 20.2 per cent respectively.
September that year began with the worst, but a late month rally helped avoid total disaster and limit the overall deficit to 23 per cent for the season as a whole.
As for this year, a majority of the models say that northwest India is most likely to continue to be in deficit in July and September.
East and north-east India too, are likely to feature below normal rainfall. Opinion is divided on the fortunes for central India and peninsular India.