2012 Indian Monsoon is faltering

The Great Indian Monsoon is faltering, it has failed in the very fast fortnight of June, 2012  and shows no sign of picking up.

One may say, what's the big deal? Well, India, which hosts 1/6th of humanity, has 66% of population directly involved into monsoon-fed agriculture, which means 1 out of every 9 human being on the planet depends on it! Too much rainfall would flood the plains, too little will create heatwave and of course, on long-term (say a  couple of weeks to months) cause severe drought.

Indian Met Office has become very pro-active in releasing data regarding monsoon rainfall now. As can be seen from http://www.imd.gov.in/section/hydro/dynamic/rfmaps/sddaily.htm

But this is just number crunching, and might not interest all. IMD also creates a Map of the rainfall data. Since the image file changes from time to time, I have saved the rainfall map of 1 june to 13 June. IMD maps excess that usual in blue, Normal in green, red as deficient, yellow as scantly rain.

Now you get the picture, Excess rainfall is only remote islands of Andaman & Nicobar, Normal rain is in Himalayan & North-east states. Apart from North-east other places are not known for cultivation, none of them are hub of agricultural employment.

In India, we have a culture of gentlemanly lethargy, we expect media & govt to take all action. We would take comfort that India has its own satellite to track rain, storm etc. Unfortunately for us, satellites can't create rain (though impression of clouds can be made by tweaking frequency of IR). And satellites has been reporting the truth to us, perhaps we are blind or just too naive to see realize it.

 Lets compare two satellite images of last year and this year:

Image taken on Jun 14, 2012 23:30 IST

Image taken on Jun 14, 2011 23:30 IST

Is there any human cost of a failed/delayed monsoon. Well, of course, heatwave has killed hundreds in the state of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa & West Bengal. Imagine hundreds of normal people (not counting sick or elderly) dead due to heatstroke. Summer vacation of schools extended. Since India is in tropics without the shade and cooling of monsoon, things will only be worse.

Another side-effect of failed monsoon will be inflation, since commodity market is mostly unregulated and unorganized, hoarding and speculation will be rampant. Due to federal structure of Indian governance, a blame game would ensue between union and state governments. The food price will hit sky-high in India. That was the experience of the last drought.

Lets hope, we do better in coping with this natural calamity this time.

   

Stupid Indian Media Outlook

The Indian media has done it again. Just because the local correspondent forgot the umbrella and got drenched they are calling the drought is over.
Fact is that one spell of 24 hour depression does not make a healthy Indian monsoon and that is beyond their capacity of comprehension.
Fact is Indian media person has no or little knowledge of satellite imagery or space science nor general meteorology and of course they don't care to know how agriculture works. For them food is produced by supermarket shelves and kitchens.
Most politicians were just waking up to the climate change and at least to this years' Monsoon conditions and in comes media men clad in their all pervasive ignorance; making a joke out of governments drought relief efforts.

Climate Change is just changing gear - watch out

Check out the IMD map, the rainfall deficiency is at 19% and that my dear is Normal by IMD standard. We must make peoples movement stronger. Our agriculture Minister had said there are 13 months of grain stock, then why do you find the prices of all pulses, rice prices going up. What about vegetables, lack of fresh vegetables will lower the immunity level and with swine flu and avian flu present in the habitat, the chance of a flu epidemic in November can not be ruled out.
We are living in a time,when having a foresight can drive you nuts. Where are models of IMD guys? why are they saying nothing about early withdrawal of Monsoon. Every publicly posted model are saying August rain will be weak. Thats good news for orissa and saurastra but real bad news for rest of India.

Met. Zone	Terrain	Normal Rainfall	Actual Rainfall	% Change
Coastal Karnataka	Coastal Plain	1763.9	1866.6	5.82
Konkan & Goa	Coastal Plain	1442.3	1431	-0.78
Kerala	Coastal Plain	1246	1260.1	1.13
Orissa	Coastal Plain	453.1	661.5	45.99
Saurashtra & kautch + Diu	Coastal Plain	226.2	339.1	49.91
Coastal A.P.	Coastal Plain	207	143	-30.92
Tamil Nadu & Pondi.	Coastal Plain	89.2	76.8	-13.90
	Coastal Plain Total	5427.7	5778.1	6.46
Gangetic W.B.	Grain bowl	465.6	273.3	-41.30
Bihar	Grain bowl	419.4	150.6	-64.09
East UP	Grain bowl	330.1	139.9	-57.62
West UP	Grain bowl	253.2	105.5	-58.33
Punjab	Grain bowl	171.9	87.8	-48.92
Har., Chd & Delhi	Grain bowl	163.7	58.1	-64.51
	Grain bowl Total	1803.9	815.2	-54.81
Assam & Meghalaya	H.Plains & plateau	975.1	532.4	-45.40
	H.Plains & plateau Total	975.1	532.4
Sikkim Him. WB	Himalayan	918.9	627	-31.77
Arunachal Pradesh	Himalayan	912.1	637.6	-30.10
N.M.M.T.	Himalayan	607	326	-46.29
Uttarakhand	Himalayan	456.4	263	-42.38
HP	Himalayan	281.7	132.3	-53.04
Jammu & Kashmir	Himalayan	178.1	142	-20.27
	Himalayan Total	3354.2	2127.9	-36.56
A & N Islands	Islands	680.5	727.2	6.86
Lakshadweep	Islands	524.2	687.1	31.08
	Islands Total	1204.7	1414.3	17.40
E. Rajasthan	Low rainfall	216.2	200	-7.49
N. I. Karnataka	Low rainfall	182.6	191.8	5.04
Rayalaseema	Low rainfall	117.9	78.6	-33.33
W. Rajasthan	Low rainfall	98.5	82.7	-16.04
	Low rainfall Total	615.2	553.1	-10.09
Chattisgarh	Plateau & Plains	467	431.2	-7.67
Jharkhand	Plateau & Plains	432	252.6	-41.53
Vidarbha	Plateau & Plains	402.2	361.1	-10.22
East MP	Plateau & Plains	406.6	353.7	-13.01
Inner Gujarat & Daman	Plateau & Plains	378.8	295.3	-22.04
Madhya Maharashtra	Plateau & Plains	308.3	303.4	-1.59
West MP	Plateau & Plains	316.3	293.1	-7.33
S. I. Karnataka	Plateau & Plains	296.7	395.8	33.40
Telangana	Plateau & Plains	293	171.6	-41.43
Marathwada	Plateau & Plains	265.1	199.8	-24.63
	Plateau & Plains Total	3566	3057.6	-14.26
	Grand Total	16946.8	14278.6

Advisory to politicians:
So Mr. Sharad Powar, now is the time to pass on the reserve grains to the people.
Mr. Manmohan Singh & Mr Pranab Mukherjee look into real india and see that food distribution has no logistical problem.
The prices are already way too high for poor and common people, if you don't want law and order situation not to deteorate then ensure food for all. Surely you don't want food riots like Haiti.

Monsoon 2009

Every other politician like Mr. Sharad Pawar, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee has started giving meteorological forecast these days. The reality is depicted in the maps given above (source: Indian Met Office Website).

This is the rainfall map for 1st June to 8Th July.

So what FM claimed in NDTV interview, that Monsoon will make up with surplus rain in July.

Few points I need to mention over here:

1. Monsoon is a natural phenomenon (Sorry Its not on government payroll) and has no compulsion to fill up any deficits or to meet any target. It is only governed by many simple rules of physics.

2. If monsoon actually fills up the rainfall deficits upto now in next 14 days or so, the areas shown in red in the maps above will be flooded. This will bring more misery,not less.

3. This one is for all politicians:

You can not trade with nature for your survival, Just like a new born baby can not trade with the mother for the milk.

Climate change and Monsoon

The Change in Monsoon Rain patterns is immense this year; The Indian Met offices laughable prediction of 96% monsoon driven rainfall is becoming truly incorrect.

The driving factors of global climate are:

• Anti-cyclones in the polar region: The ones in stretching from Antarctic to 40Th Parallel is disturbing the major accumulation of rain-clouds of the Somalia coast which comes down to Indian sub-continent as Monsoon in May to September each year. It is shearing off the clouds once every week as one anti-cyclone dissipates and another emerges in oceans south of Africa.

• Second factor are the anti-cyclones which are being created in the pacific, they are creating weather fronts which is picking water vapor from South China Sea and their strong pull is increasing the Mean Wind speed of Monsoon wind and driving the wind straight in an easterly direction in Bay of Bengal and pushing it across Andaman Sea into Thailand & Burma.

• Third factor is the weather of north India is being bombarded by “western disturbance” even in June (They are usually found in January to March), which is causing another change in wind shear patterns.
  
  From the satellite pictures you might see rain clouds over Bangladesh and say monsoon has arrived, but a look into convergence detail and wind directions will tell you the clouds are going out to the bay and over to Burma.
  
  Monsoon Winds in Northern Hemisphere are moving westerly (from the west to east direction), Period. Monsoon this year is not being freaky but setting the standards in warmer climate for years to come.
  
  So storms 1B (Bijli) and 2B(Aila) will be repeated every year with more to come. Indian government should prepare itself for a special deadly mix of Drought and Cyclones.

Hurricane Season, Monsoon & Economy

This year monsoon has been strong, more than 12 Indian states affected by floods, no estimate loss of national property has been reported.
Death toll is more than 1000 for the entire season. Still nobody calls it a national calamity; on the other hand in spite of bad and washed away roads and villages, the pseudo-economist would say "The fundamentals are good". The coalition govt members are busy arm-twisting, back-stabbing in their race to grab more power. How can we call ourselves the great emerging power with fellow countrymen dying.

Let me ask those super-learned who has been saying the fundamentals are good. What is your economic priority? A cooked-up GDP figure, is that all.

You would perhaps learn to take stock of natural calamities while counting the gold. If forget the fallen then that would take the shine away from gold.

Hurricane Season in the Caribbean and Mexican gulf, which Dean knocking down the door, the oil prices are going to surge once again; hurting western and all other economies as well. What can we do about them, one great measure would be to stop all decorative lightings, Glow signs, Billbords etc. But that's a different topic and I will discuss another day.

So stay safe in the stock markets and hurricane path.