Rains see late retreat after good show

After normal rains in most parts except western Madhya Pradesh and some north-eastern hill states, the monsoon began withdrawing from north-west India on Monday.

This is the second most belated withdrawal of the monsoon since 1960. Last year had seen a record delay in withdrawal, when the monsooon started leaving the western part of Rajasthan on September 30.

Normally, the south-west monsoon begins retreating from the western-most part of Rajasthan in the first week of September and leaves the state and its adjoining areas by September 15. Prior to this, the most-belated withdrawal was on September 28, 1964 and 1970 and September 27 in 1990.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the south-west monsoon on Monday withdrew from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, most parts of Rajasthan and Uttarakhand and some parts of west Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat.

It may recede from some more parts of north-west and central India in the next two to three days.

However, isolated heavy rainfall is projected in north Bihar and sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim till tomorrow and scattered showers in the north-eastern states till at least October 4.

The total rainfall in the whole country between June 1 and September 25, according to data available, was 864.2 mm, which falls just about 1 per cent short of the normal.

This is close to the long-term forecast by the IMD of near-normal rainfall for this year’s four-month monsoon season between June 1 and September 30.

While the first prediction issued by the IMD on April 16 had put the expected rainfall at 99 per cent of the long period (1941-90) average, the update released by it on June 30 had raised this figure to 100 per cent of the normal (890 mm).

However, the IMD’s rainfall prediction for different regions of the country proved off-the-mark again this year. It had forecast shortfall of rain by 4 per cent in the northwestern region and 2 per cent in the southern peninsula.

The actual rainfall (till September 25) turned out to be 8 per cent above normal in the North-West and absolutely on the dot in the southern peninsula.

For the central and north-eastern regions, the IMD had predicted 1 per cent above normal rainfall. But the actual rainfall so far has been 2 per cent below normal in central India and as much 7 per cent short of normal in the North-East.

Only 2 or the total 36 meteorological sub-divisions in the country have experienced deficient rainfall this year, against 6 in this category last year. These are western Madhya Pradesh (with minus 20 per cent rainfall) and the subdivision comprising Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Tripura (with 21 per cent deficiency).