Monsoon this year is on its last stretch with the withdrawal starting from Rajasthan. While the nationwide picture shows a deficit that the India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects is likely to be made up over the next two weeks, key paddy-producing States like Kerala and Karnataka have seen a significant shortfall in monsoon. Other areas, which otherwise see relatively scanty rain, have had a surplus this year. Speaking to BTVi, Skymet Weather Services CEO Jatin Singh expects monsoons to be normal this year even if it is slightly less till mid-September.

Apart from Central India, there are small amounts of deficit in different regions. How has the monsoon panned out so far this year? As far as the withdrawal of the monsoon is concerned, by how much do you expect the deficit to be covered, if not to the complete extent?

When we talk about deficit let us look at the categories. Deficit is a misleading word.

If it is 95 per cent of long period average and below it is called below normal. And if you are 95 per cent plus — between 96 and 104 per cent — it is normal. I have a feeling that the monsoon is going to stay at around 95 per cent. If we are lucky we should go up to 97-98 per cent. We had downgraded the monsoon forecast to about 100 per cent with an error margin of 5 per cent on August 19, which is around mid way of the season because we knew that August was going to be below par and there were some expectations that September would be good.

September is right now running a deficit of about 19 per cent. I think that is going to be covered up significantly over the next few days. But that is where the monsoon will be. I think in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra coast (Andhra and Odisha) and Jharkhand over the next few days and the North-East.

I think the monsoon is more or less over for Peninsular India. I don’t expect much rain in southern Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu now.

Let’s talk about the deficit States as well. There was evidence of some deficiency in Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Assam, Meghalaya and even coastal Karnataka and Kerala. In the residual portion of September, do you see the withdrawal of the monsoon covering up for the deficit in some of these portions?

I do not see major spells in North India. So Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh will continue to be below normal. I do not think North-Eastern States — Nagaland, Manipur and Tripura — also will cover up. The only place, I think, will come close to normal is Gujarat because there is a strong low pressure that is building between Surat and Mumbai right now.

As far as the residual portion of September is concerned and the amount of rainfall that you see for the residual portion of September, has there been any instances in certain regions of excess rainfall which might have led to crop damage in certain prominently agrarian region?

Rajasthan is for sure. It was running at 24 per cent plus. There has been significant amount of damage because of excess rainfall.

In Madhya Pradesh, there is some soyabean crop damage because of excess rainfall. These are two States where the damage is widespread. Maharashtra has damage in Marathwada area because of the prolonged dry spell in August. Even though Haryana is below normal, there have been inundation losses in the State also because of the thunder storms in August.

We also keep hearing about the macro impacts of La Nina that is developing over the Pacific. We had two consecutive seasons of droughts. And after that now we are seeing a near normal-monsoon. Does the La Nina impact the prospects of monsoon, going ahead into the next few seasons as well?

By around January, we will see how the weather conditions in the Pacific develops and then we will be able to take a call in March or April.

I don’t think you can really strike out that cycle. In 2016, if you look at all the projections made by Skymet and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, the numbers were 110 to 112 per cent, which was unbelievable. The data was proved to be true in July when we were running at 108 per cent, which is a very powerful number. In September, it would be slightly negative from LPA. So the uncertainty is slightly high. But one thing definitely is sure — climate change has hit Indian monsoons very hard.

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