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Harish Damodaran

NEW DELHI, Aug. 31

THE monsoon has staged a revival of sorts during August, thereby partially mitigating the impact of a disastrous first half performance.

While the total area-weighted rainfall received by the country during June-July stood almost 30 per cent below the historical long period average (LPA) value, the corresponding deficit in August (till the 28th) was less than four per cent (see Table).

As a result, the cumulative area-weighted rainfall during June 1 to August 28, at 565.6 millimeters, was 21 per cent below the LPA of 715.6 mm for this almost three months period.

Although this still makes it a `deficient' monsoon - which corresponds to a shortfall in excess of 10 per cent for the country as a whole and 20 per cent for individual sub-divisions - the fact that the cumulative deficit has fallen to 21 per cent from 30 per cent till end-July is indicative of the renewed `normal' monsoon activity during August.

Further, while as many as 26 out of the country's 36 meteorological sub-divisions recorded deficient-to-scanty precipitation during June-July, the figure has come down now to 19.

The seven sub-divisions, which have graduated from deficient/scanty to `normal' status since end-July include Uttaranchal, Saurashtra & Kutch, East Madhya Pradesh, North Interior Karnataka, Telangana, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Konkan & Goa.

In fact, the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) data for August alone shows that as many as six sub-divisions - Jammu & Kashmir, East MP, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada, Vidarbha and Telangana - recorded `excess' rainfall, i.e. 20 per cent higher than the LPA value for this month. There were 10 deficit-to-scanty sub-divisions, including Punjab, Haryana & Delhi, East and West Rajasthan, Assam & Meghalaya, South Interior Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rayalaseema, Andamans and Lakshadweep. The remaining 20 sub-divisions witnessed normal rainfall activity during the month.

The turnaround in fortunes - courtesy good August rains - has been most significant in the case of Maharashtra (all three sub-divisions), East MP and the Telangana sub-division in AP. The monsoon has so far been truly `normal' only in these areas, apart from West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Jammu & Kashmir. In the rest of the country, the monsoon's performance has been far from inspiring.

Moreover, the reasonably good rains in August (and hopefully September) are unlikely to make up for the monsoon's first half failure. What this means is that the overall rainfall deficit for the season (June-September) will, in all likelihood, be in excess of 10 per cent, making 2002 the first ever deficient monsoon year since 1987.

If the monsoon is to still end up being `normal', the country would have to receive an area-weighted rainfall of around 226 mm in September alone, which is nearly 38 per cent higher than the LPA for the month. In other words, what would be required is not `normal', but `excess' precipitation in the coming month.

But according to experts, whenever rainfall levels have been low in the first half of the season during the past, they have tended to be so in the second half as well. Historical data show that in the event of the shortfall (relative to LPA) exceeding 10 per cent in June-July, the probability of the monsoon ending up being normal was only 0.33. And in this case, the first half deficit has been as high as 30 per cent.

Further, they point out that past data also reveal very few instances of excess rainfall being recorded during August-September; in most cases, it is either normal or slightly below LPA (as it has been in August).

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