Why This Monsoon Is Not Normal

Indian Met Office has gleefully declared that the 2010 rainfall is normal and published the map in its website to justify its claim. Current rainfall deficit is at -5%. The tolerance for average rainfall remains very high +/- 19%. I would like to draw your attention towards the heterogeneity of Terrain and Climatic conditions of India. Please remember the food security of 1/6th and economic existence of1/10th of global human population depends on truthful projection of Indian Monsoon by Indian Met Office. Monsoon Watch gives a daily briefing of Monsoonal conditions. Here's the map depicting rainfall from 1st June to 28th July 2010 released after weekly briefing.

The lack of red color in the map and the presence of blue color might make it soothing for the eyes. But they hide the fact and at least 5 meteorological divisions had just missed the red color by a whisker. IMD does not provide tabular data, so we had to create one for ourselves.

Met. Zone	Terrain	Normal Rainfall	Actual Rainfall	Change Noted
Coastal Karnataka	Coastal Plain	1990.4	1746	-12.28
Konkan and Goa	Coastal Plain	1643	1911.9	16.37
Kerala	Coastal Plain	1383.9	1199.2	-13.35
Orissa	Coastal Plain	519.5	442.3	-14.86
Saurashtra, kautch, Diu	Coastal Plain	262.7	470.5	79.10
Coastal A.P.	Coastal Plain	243.5	385.4	58.27
Tamil Nadu and Pondi.	Coastal Plain	107	165	54.20
	Coastal Plain Total	6150	6320.3	2.76
Gangetic W.B.	Grain bowl	531.9	366.7	-31.06
Bihar	Grain bowl	474.4	378.1	-20.30
East UP	Grain bowl	381.8	260.8	-31.69
West UP	Grain bowl	309.8	252.8	-18.39
Punjab	Grain bowl	207.1	235.9	13.90
Har., Chd and Delhi	Grain bowl	198.2	184.5	-6.91
	Grain bowl Total	2103.2	1678.8	-20.18
Assam and Meghalaya	H.Plains and plateau	1121.8	795.7	-29.07
	H.Plains and plateau Total	1121.8	795.7	-29.07
Sikkim Him. WB	Himalayan	1027	1185	15.38
Arunachal Pradesh	Himalayan	949.9	747.2	-21.34
N.M.M.T.	Himalayan	754.7	636.1	-15.71
Uttarakhand	Himalayan	540.9	568.2	5.05
HP	Himalayan	348.7	372.9	6.94
Jammu and Kashmir	Himalayan	226.8	298.6	31.66
	Himalayan Total	3848	3808	-1.04
A + N Islands	Islands	818.7	926.8	13.20
Lakshadweep	Islands	588.1	602.8	2.50
	Islands Total	1406.8	1529.6	8.73
E. Rajasthan	Low rainfall	268.5	213.9	-20.34
N. I. Karnataka	Low rainfall	210.7	271.8	29.00
Rayalaseema	Low rainfall		141.2	221.9	57.15
W. Rajasthan	Low rainfall	119.6	174.5	45.90
	Low rainfall Total	740.0	882.1	19.20
Chattisgarh	Plateau and Plains	546.7	453.1	-17.12
Jharkhand	Plateau and  Plains	488	264.5	-45.80
Vidarbha	Plateau and Plains	467.1	510.8	9.36
East MP	Plateau and  Plains	476.8	391.7	-17.85
Inner Gujarat and Daman	Plateau and Plains	435	394.1	-9.40
Madhya Maharashtra	Plateau and Plains	350.7	416.5	18.76
West MP	Plateau and  Plains	381.6	282.9	-25.86
S. I. Karnataka	Plateau and  Plains	347.6	313.4	-9.84
Telangana	Plateau and Plains	348.6	418.6	20.08
Marathwada	Plateau and Plains	315.4	408.6	29.55
	Plateau and Plains Total	4157.5	3854.2	-7.30
	Grand  Total	19527.3	18868.7

So we can see there are actually more areas in red. Lets check out where it has rained most,

• The traditionally low rainfall areas like west Gujarat, west Rajasthan great surplus of rain.  
• The West coast and the state of Maharashtra along with Andhra Pradesh and Surprisingly Tamil Nadu.  
• Western Himalayan States and Punjab. Here the no of rainy days has decreased but when it rained, it poured.
• Sikkim & North Bengal 

There has been incidents of flash floods too. Neither floods nor Drought is good for the vast rural population of India.Many would like to discard the monsoon anomalies, as they have seen pictures of floods in Punjab and Hariyana on TV. But remember last year there were far more devastating floods in Orissa and Saurashtra, still the National consensus was 2009 was a drought year.

The major crop of monsoon has been predominantly rice and sugarcane. Rice being the staple food for majority of Indians in the states facing rainfall shortage. The rainfall is still not good enough for sowing the rice paddy, although it is great for city folks who face water-logging in their neighborhood.  

Lets sign off with the latest satellite image which clearly shows weak monsoon clouds, with two blobs of cloud in the west coast and in the north.