Monsoon most ‘uneven’ in long time

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 17

The 2019 monsoon season appears to be the most “uneven” India has experienced in a long time. 

Despite killing floods in many parts and the country receiving more than 100 per cent of average rains in the four-month season this year, many regions, especially in the Indo-Gangetic plains, continue to remain woefully deficit. The situation is not expected to change even while moisture-laden easterly winds continue to flow in, raising the humidity levels in plains of the Northwest beyond tolerable limits.

Now, it seems that after Madhya Pradesh, monsoon is again turning fury towards Maharashtra. 

The IMD today issued a warning of “fairly widespread to widespread rainfall over Maharashtra (isolated extremely heavy falls over ghat areas of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and north Konkan) on September 18 and 19 and Andhra Pradesh and Telangana for the next two to three days”.

Meanwhile, even as Northwest received 48 per cent less rains last week, it continued to experience high humidity levels. 

Mahesh Palawat, Meteorology and Climate Change in charge at private forecaster Skymet, said any respite can be expected around month-end/ beginning of October when the direction of the winds changes. 

Normally, the monsoon starts withdrawing from the Northwest in the first week of September but this year, so far, there are no signs of it retreating. Rather, it has again turned fury towards Central and Western parts. Despite 2019 being a very good monsoon season on paper, it has not benefitted the farmers, say experts. 

While deficit parts of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra experienced good rains after a long time, the 2019 monsoon was more uneven than most years in the recent past.

Deficit meteorological regions include Northwest, particularly Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh—predominant crop growing areas. In Bihar, half of the state is facing serious shortfall and the other half floods. In the past few years, monsoon has been uneven but this time it was more pronounced.