June 2021: District wise rainfall in India’s SW Monsoon

In the just concluded June 2021, the first month of India’s South West 2021 monsoon, India received 182.9 mm rainfall, 10.96% or about 11% more than the normal June rainfall of 166.9 mm as per India Meteorological department. In June 2020, the rainfall was 196.9 mm, or about 18% above normal and in June 2019 it was 33% below normal.

However, the monsoon is currently playing a disappearing act in most of the states. This is clear from the fact that by June 21, India had already received 137.8 mm rainfall, 37% above normal rainfall of 100.5 mm by that date. From June 21 to June 30 (IMD cut off time is 830 hrs for reporting the rainfall) India received 35.1 mm rainfall, against the normal rainfall of 66.4 mm. So in this period India received 47% below normal rainfall and worryingly, that trend continues as we enter July 2021, the second month of the SW Monsoon 2021. As the Times of India wrote in its editorial today (June 30, 2021), India really needs to prioritise the harvesting of rain where it falls, when it falls, make every drop count. We are unfortunately, still busy destroying the prime forests and wetlands for projects of questionable merits like the Ken Betwa River Link Project.

State wise Rainfall As we can see from the IMD map above, out of 37 States and Union Territories (UTs), two (surprisingly, these are two of India’s largest states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar) had large Excess (Actual rainfall more than 60% above normal), Nine had Excess (Actual rainfall 20-59% above normal), 14 had normal (Actual rainfall 19% below normal to above normal), 11 had deficit (Actual rainfall 20-59% below normal rainfall) and one (Ladakh, also had the lowest rainfall at 1.4 mm) had Large Deficit (Actual rainfall over 60% below normal) in rainfall in June 2021. Goa had the highest rainfall of 994.6 mm, close to four figure mark.

Sub Division wise rainfall IMD divides India into 36 meteorological divisions (the logic of many of them is far from clear). As we can see from the map above, three sub divisions (Rayalseema, East UP and Bihar) had Large Excess rainfall, 13 had Excess rainfall, 12 had Normal rainfall and 8 had deficit rainfall. Konkan and Goa had the highest rainfall at 973.6 mm and Jammu & Kashmir, including Ladakh had the lowest at 38.2 mm rainfall in June 2021.

River Basin wise Rainfall As we can see from the above map, IMD also reports river basin wise rainfall, but as we have been noting in the past, this reporting remains rather callous and inadequate, unfortunately. This is clear from the map, where was can see that IMD reports NO RAIN in whole of the month June 2021 in all these river basins: Upper Brahmaputra, Imphal and others, Barak, Tons, Nagvati, East flowing rivers between Godavari and Krishna, East flowing rivers between Krishna and Pennar, Ponniyar-Palar and Vaippar-Pamba. THIS IS AN IMPOSSIBILITY, looking at the district wise rainfall in the maps below, among others. Clearest evidence of IMD’s devil cares attitude in reporting river basin wise rainfall.

In addition, IMD reports NO DATA for Indus and Jhelum river basins. Middle Yamuna (possibly the lowest rainfall at 3.5 mm, but this also does not seem right considering the rainfall in these areas as reports by the districts in the river basin) and Lower Bhima are the only river basins in IMD map showing large deficit rainfall. Six other basins are shown having deficit rainfall. Kynchiang basin in Meghalaya had possibly the highest rainfall at 1305.8 mm.

DISTRICT WISE STATE WISE RAINFALL

NORTH INDIA: Jammu & Kashmir