India’s rainfall deficit at 35% as monsoon progress stalls, Pg1

Key Highlights:

• India is currently facing a nationwide monsoon deficit of 35%, with the monsoon's northward progress stalled for several days.
• The shortfall is primarily concentrated in Maharashtra, the Konkan coast, and adjoining regions of central India.
• Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has directed states to formulate crop-wise contingency plans for districts experiencing low or uneven rainfall.
• The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has revised its seasonal rainfall forecast to 90% of the Long Period Average (LPA), assigning a 60% probability of a deficient year.
• This deficit is particularly significant as global forecasters predict a 'Super El Niño' year.

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Detailed Insights:

• While northwest India has received a 5% surplus, other regions show significant deficits: east and northeast India (-43%), central India (-61%), and the southern peninsula (-14%).
• The government is monitoring 150 to 200 priority districts, conducting weekly El Niño reviews, and encouraging a shift towards cotton and pulses cultivation.
• Reservoir storage is at 30.4% of capacity, which is higher than the 25.1% average observed in previous El Niño years, indicating better preparedness.
• Historical data reveals that June rainfall in El Niño years has been inconsistent, with sharp deficits comparable to this year only occurring in 2009 and 2014.
• The IMD's May-end forecast update, lowering the LPA from 92% to 90%, represents its most pessimistic pre-season call since 2015.
• Rating agency ICRA has estimated that a serious farm disruption could increase retail food inflation by about 0.4 percentage points, a risk also highlighted by the Reserve Bank of India.

Key Concepts Involved:

• Kharif crops: Crops sown during the monsoon season (June-July) and harvested in autumn (September-October), heavily reliant on monsoon rainfall.
• El Niño: A climate pattern characterized by the unusual warming of surface waters in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, influencing global weather patterns.
• Long Period Average (LPA): A 50-year average of monsoon rainfall, used by the IMD as a benchmark to forecast the quantity of rainfall during the monsoon season.
• India Meteorological Department (IMD): The primary agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting, and seismology in India.