Winter 2024: District wise Rainfall in India

In the just concluded 2024 Winter Season (January 1 2024 to February 29 2024), as per India Meteorological Department (IMD), India received 33% below Normal Rainfall (it was 45% below normal in winter 2023 [i], 44% above normal rainfall in winter 2022 [ii] and 32% below normal rainfall in winter 2021 [iii]). This is coming on top of 5.55% below normal in SW Monsoon 2023 [iv] and 9% below normal rainfall in Post Monsoon season 2023 [v].

The Normal rainfall in this two-month Winter season is supposed to be quite low at 39.8 mm (this was 40.8 mm till 2022), but the actual rainfall was 26.8 mm in winter 2024, up from 21.9 mm in 2023 winter, but less than half of the 58.7 mm received in winter 2022. Out of this the Rainfall in January 2024 was 58% below normal at 7.2 mm (lowest in the last six years after 18.5 mm in 2019, 28.3 mm in 2020, 20.3 mm in 2021 and 39.5 mm in 2022, 14.8 mm in 2023), against the normal rainfall of 17.1 mm. In February 2024, the rainfall was 19.6 mm, against the normal rainfall of 22.7 mm, so the February rainfall was 13.7% below normal.

However, the figures of actual rainfall are possibly an underestimation to the extent that they do not fully include the snowfall figures. This is a major lacuna in IMD reporting rainfall figures from snowfall areas of Himalayan states. Reporting these figures on regular basis is also useful in understanding changing snowfall figures. These can also help in some cases for assessing the possibility of avalanches. Currently SASE (Snow and Avalanche Study Establishment), now part of DGRE (Defence Geoinformatics Research Establishment) is supposed to be monitoring snowfall and avalanche possibilities, but all that information is not in public domain, though it needs to be as this is basic information necessary for all concerned.

In this report we are giving detailed state wise and district wise figures of the rainfall for the 2024 winter season as reported by IMD.

STATEWISE RAINFALL As we can see from the map below, out of 37 states and Union Territories (UTs) of India, 7 had Large Excess, 4 (Tripura, Nagaland, Jharkhand, Andaman-Nicobar) had Excess, 6 had Normal, 15 had deficient, 3 (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Punjab) had Large Deficient rainfall and 1 (Diu, Daman, Dadra and Nagarhaveli) had NO RAIN. Dadra & Nagar Haveli on western coast had NO RAIN in 2021-2023 too. Puducherry had the highest rainfall (183 mm), at 270 % above normal rainfall of 49.5 mm. Ladakh had the highest surplus % at 502, like in case of 2023 when it had 88% surplus rain.

SUB DIVISION WISE RAINFALL As can be seen from the IMD map below, out of 36 meteorological sub divisions of India, 5 had large excess, 3 (South Interior Karnataka, Jharkhand and Andaman-Nicobar) had Excess, 5 had normal, 17 had deficient, 6 had Large Deficient and none had NO RAIN. Coastal Karnataka had the highest surplus at 1204 %.

RIVER BASIN WISE RAINFALL As we have seen in the past, IMD also reports river basin wise rainfall as we can see in the map below. These figures, however, remain unreliable as in case of large number of river basins, IMD is reporting NO RAIN, which is unlikely and in contradiction with the state and region wise rainfall. It again shows callous attitude of IMD on this issue.