2 major spells of weak monsoon prevailed over country: IMD
With 24 per cent deficiency, rainfall in August was lowest in 19 years, impacting kharif sowing, which is reported at 1096.70 lakh hectares as against the 1106.57 lakh hectares last year.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday that two major spells of weak monsoon prevailed over the country — from August 9-16 and August 23-27 — when the northwest, central and adjoining peninsular and west coast of India had subdued rainfall activities. The southwest monsoon in Delhi has been erratic, but it has given the highest rainfall to the national Capital in 11 years — 1,005.3 mm so far.
This is the first time since 2010 that monsoon rainfall in Delhi breached the 1,000 mm mark.
According to data released by the Agriculture Ministry, about 409.55 lakh hectares paddy sowing has been reported by States as compared to 384.64 lakh hectares last year. Madhya Pradesh reported 11.07 lakh hectares, Telangana 9.01 lakh hectares, Jharkhand 1.57 lakh hectares, Tamil Nadu 1.02 lakh hectares, and Karnataka 0.79 lakh hectares of rice plantation so far. The sowing has been less in Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, Gujarat, Goa and Assam.
The sowing of pulses has been reported at 139. 63 lakh hectares as against 136.65 lakh hectares last year. Higher areas of plantation has been reported from Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jammu & Kashmir, while Madhya Pradesh, Bengal, Gujarat, Telangana, Punjab and Mizoram are among those States which have reported less areas under pulses cultivation.
Coarse cereals have been cultivated at 173 79 lakh hectare as against 178.63 lakh hectare last year.
According to the IMD, during August 2021, rainfall over the country as a whole was below Long Period Average (LPA) by minus 24 per cent. It is also lowest August rainfall in last 19 years, since 2002.
The Southwest monsoon season officially commences from June 1 and lasts till September 30. June recorded 10 per cent more rainfall, but both July and August clocked deficiency of seven and 24 per cent respectively, according to the IMD data.
The country received 24 per cent less than normal rainfall in August. Of the four meteorological divisions of the IMD, the central India division received 39 per cent less. The division consists of a large swathe of area from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
The deficiency in the northwest India division, which comprises northern Indian States, was 30 per cent. The deficiency was 10 per cent in the south peninsula whereas the east and northeast division received two percent more rainfall than the normal.
The IMD had predicted that the rainfall activity was expected to be normal during August. It has now predicted above-normal precipitation in September.
The weather forecasting agency said intra-seasonal variation in terms of week by week rainfall variation over India shows that monsoon rainfall activities were largely subdued consecutively for three weeks -- for the week ending on August 11, August 18 and August 25 -- when all India weekly cumulative rainfall for the country as a whole was 35 per cent, 36 per cent and 21 per cent, respectively, below its Long Period Average (LPA).
The formation of less number of low-pressure systems (PLS) and their lesser number of days compared to the climatology and absence of their longer westward movements during the month of August 2021 contributed to the large deficient rainfall in central India as well as all India, the IMD said.
It said negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) over the tropical Indian Ocean, unfavourable for Indian monsoon prevailed throughout August, which also contributed to deficient rainfall over India in the month. A negative IOD is associated with the heating of waters of the Indian Ocean.