Met office downgrades June rainfall forecast to ‘below normal’

Normally, the Met department issues the monthly rainfall prediction at the start of every month. Seen as a departure from norm, the IMD Tuesday retracted its original rainfall forecast within 20 days of the release of the second stage Long Range Forecast on May 27.

Last month, the IMD had said the country would receive normal rainfall in June, which would be 92-108 per cent of the LPA.

“Below normal rainfall is likely over Central, Northwest and some areas of Northeast India in June,” the updated forecast stated.

Being the monsoon onset month, June contributes to about 15 per cent of the country’s seasonal rainfall. Normally, the southwest monsoon covers the entire country around July 15. However, it is the rainfall during July and August, each contributing 35 per cent to the country’s seasonal rainfall, which is crucial for agriculture activities and replenishment of water resources.

“As this is the onset month, the rainfall deficit in June is not as much a concern,” M Rajeevan, former secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, told The Indian Express.

The downgraded rainfall forecast could mean that the chances of the southwest monsoon advancement, and hence rainfall, especially to the eastern and central regions, is most likely to be delayed.

This year, if the monsoon progress was timely, the monsoon should have covered West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh by now. Whereas, the progress has remained stalled since June 11 with the northern limit of the monsoon passing along Navsari, Jalgaon, Amravati, Chandrapur, Bijapur, Sukma, Malkangiri, Vizianagaram and Islampur.

The all-India rainfall on Tuesday stood at -20 per cent and quantitatively it was 64.5 mm against a normal of 80.6 mm.

Additionally, the likely delay in the monsoon onset over Central, East and North India during the coming days could potentially contribute to continued hot conditions. Heatwave conditions and warm nights have persisted over these regions since early June.

On Tuesday, some of the warmest nights were recorded in North India where the minimum temperatures soared to as high as 37 degrees Celsius in Rajasthan’s Alwar, Varanasi (33.6 degrees Celsius) and Lakhimpur Kheri (33 degrees Celsius). For comparison, the maximum temperature recorded on Tuesday over Kolkata was 36.2 degrees Celsius, Bhopal (34.2 degrees Celsius) and Thiruvananthapuram (33.1 degrees Celsius).

The ray of hope during this season rests on the emergence of La Nina conditions during July-September. La Nina, the cooler-than-normal temperatures over the equatorial Pacific Ocean, is known to aid the monsoon rainfall over India.

“We can expect good rainfall during July, August and September this year,” Rajeevan said.

According to latest forecasts, the monsoon will continue to remain active over eastern India regions through this week. On Tuesday, Mawsynram in Meghalaya recorded 780 mm in 24 hours, making it one of the wettest days for the location this season.