Overall rainfall deficit has slipped back one per cent to 18 per cent as the progress of monsoon ground to a halt over the country’s farming heartland.
India Met Department has in the latest projections estimated that the June-September season would be 87 per cent of the long-period average.
The rains have largely dried up over northwest India where the deficit as of yesterday is 29 per cent, the worst among the four regions that the country is divided into meteorologically.
Here, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand have managed to list themselves into the ‘normal rainfall’ category.
The rest are ‘deficient’ or even ‘scanty,’ as in the case of the Met subdivision of Punjab where the deficit is as high as 60 per cent.
East and Northeast India is the next big casualty with a regional deficit of 23 per cent. But here, the monsoon is currently in an ‘active’ or ‘vigorous’ phase with expected benefits expected to flow in due course.
SETBACK IN CENTRAL
Central India has suffered a setback in that its relentless march to a ‘rainfall normal’ met with abrupt end last weekend with the deficit worsening to seven per cent.
This represented a fall by five percentage points, though the deficit contained to the single-digit figure but precariously positioned at nine per cent latest.
Here, too, there is ‘rainfall scanty’ Met subdivision of Marathawada (-60 per cent) while east Gujarat (-27 per cent) and Vidarbha (-24 per cent) followed in that order.
There is no ‘rainfall scanty’ incidence from the South Peninsula where the deficit stands at 15 per cent latest.
DEFICIT IN ANDHRA PRADESH
Entire erstwhile Andhra Pradesh is in deficit – coastal Andhra Pradesh at -36 per cent; Telangana at 52 per cent; and Rayalaseema at 29 per cent.
The other deficient Met subdivision is north interior Karnataka that has reported 25 per cent.
It remains to be seen how far these areas in South Peninsula stand to benefit from an expected spell of rains there from early next week.
Meanwhile, the monsoon is set to continue with its pulsating run in the northeast with the causative monsoon trough aligning itself along the Himalayan foothills.