June 2023: District wise rainfall in India’s SW Monsoon

In the just concluded month June 2023, the first month of India’s South West 2023 monsoon, India received 148.6 mm rainfall, 10% below the normal June rainfall of 165.3 mm as per India Meteorological department. In June 2022, the rainfall was 152.3 mm, 8% below normal, in June 2021, the rainfall was 182.9 mm [i], about 11% above normal and 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 rainfall has been far from normal this month. In almost 400 of the 717 districts, the rainfall saw a deficit.

Research by Prof Arindam Chakraborty at the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (IISc), has shown that over the past 150 years, only six times has El Nino year followed a La Nina year like is the case in 2023. In five of those years, India faced drought.

AN EXCELLENT report in 2022 by ROXY KOLL of IITM (Pune) explained the South West Monsoon in India, showing foot print of Climate Change and its connections with wider climate and implications. Very clear headed and also suggesting what is required: We need to urgently disaster-proof every district and village of South Asia and make it climate resilient. We need to prepare our houses and farms for both droughts and floods. We need policies that help redesign our cities and prepare our rural areas for intensifying cyclones, floods and heatwaves. Unfortunately, IMD is unable to provide ACTIONABLE forecasts of rainfall, as clear as explained by IITM scientist.

Region wise rainfall IMD divides the country into four regions: North West India, East & North East India, Central India, South Peninsula. The bar charts from daily rainfall in these regions and also for Pan India rainfall as provided by IMD for June 2023 are given below.

South India has received its lowest June rainfall in 122 years according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) due to extremely severe cyclone Biparjoy and other interactions of wind systems. The region received 88.6 mm rainfall in June 2023, 45 per cent less than the normal between 1971 and 2020.

State wise Rainfall As we can see from the IMD map above, out of 37 States and Union Territories (UTs), four (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Delhi, Ladakh) had large Excess (Actual rainfall more than 60% above normal), Five (Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Diu-Daan and Dadar-Nagarhaveli)) had Excess (Actual rainfall 20-59% above normal), 14 had normal (Actual rainfall 19% below normal to above normal), 12 had deficit (Actual rainfall 20-59% below normal rainfall) and One (Kerala) had Large Deficit (Actual rainfall over 60% below normal) in rainfall in June 2021. Meghalaya had the highest rainfall of 840.6 mm (1493 mm in June 2022), Ladakh had the lowest rainfall at 4.7 mm (2 mm in June 2022).

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 (Gujarat, East and West Rajasthan) had Large Excess rainfall, Seven had Excess rainfall, seven had Normal rainfall, 17 had deficit rainfall and two (Marathwada and Kerala-Mahe) had large deficit. Sikkim had the highest rainfall at 547.1 mm and Marathwada had the lowest at 41.3 mm rainfall in June 2023.

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 one can see that IMD reports NO RAIN in whole of the month June 2023 in all these river basins: Barak, Imphal and others, Tons, Upper Bhima, Upper Krishna, Manjira 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 Upper Indus and Jhelum river basins.

DISTRICT WISE STATE WISE RAINFALL

NORTH INDIA: Jammu & Kashmiar

Himachal Pradesh

Uttarakhand

Punjab

Haryana

Delhi

EAST INDIA

Uttar Pradesh

Bihar

W Bengal

Jharkhand

Odisha

Chhattisgarh

NORTH EAST INDIA

Sikkim

Assam

Arunachal Pradesh

Meghalaya

Manipur

Mizoram

Nagaland

Tripura

SOUTH INDIA

Andhra Pradesh

Telangana

Karnataka The state recorded 50% deficit in June 2023, with 16 of 31 districts facing drought like situation with deficit of 60 to 99%. The state received about 75 mm rainfall against the normal rainfall of around 150 mm, with most of the rainfall coming in last week. Over the past two years, the state received a surplus in June — 33% in 2021 and 4% in 2022.

Bengaluru saw the driest June this year in six years with rainfall just close to 80 mm. The rainfall was 91.5 mm, 83.3 mm, 115.8 mm, 92.1 mm, 207.7 mm in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 respecively.