Did you know Ramanathapuram has received the lowest rainfall among all districts in India so far this Southwest Monsoon? Only 10.8 mm so far in 45 days of Southwest Monsoon. Read for more interesting tidbits on Southwest Monsoon 2015 in the third summary of Southwest Monsoon 2015.
The break in Monsoon is clearly visible in the district spatial analysis of Southwest Monsoon 2015. As of 2nd July 410 districts of the county was Normal or Above which has now dropped to 371 districts. The worrying trend if one gets deep into this is out of the 232 districts which were in Excess category as of 24th June only 88 are still in Excess category with 90% of the districts regressing between 24th June & 15th July
Similarly almost two thirds of the districts that were under Normal category as of 24th June has regressed since then. In the wrong end of the table out of the 255 districts that were in Deficit or worse category as of 24th June about 55% of them are still in deficit or worse category though more than 80% of the districts have shown positive progress during this period. Overall 324 districts have shown regression between 24th June & 15th July clearly indicating how bad this break in Monsoon has been.
Now let us see how July has been so far this Southwest Monsoon 2015. Except for Northwest India no other Division has had higher than average rainfall for the month of July. The country as a whole has received 33% Deficit rainfall for the month of July going by the IMD Average Method. As you can see except for a few pockets its Reds everywhere in the country. With monsoon continuing to be active in a few pockets we are staring at the possibility of one of the worst Julys’ in recent times.
The districts with highest rainfall this Southwest Monsoon is dominated by Northeast India with Udupi the only district from West Coast. This effectively confirms the bad couple of weeks West Coast is facing this year. Crucially even though Udupi is in the Top 10 districts it is facing a deficit of 21% over normal rainfall.
Confirming Tamil Nadu is in the rain shadow region during Southwest Monsoon 8 out of the 10 districts with lowest rainfall this season is from Tamil Nadu. Ramanathapuram has received even lesser rainfall than Leh & Ladakh which has the lowest average rainfall during Southwest Monsoon period.
And now for the state wise distribution of district classification, Kerala has only 1 district which is normal category confirming how bad this year has been for the state. Maharashtra which was doing very well towards end of June is now staring at a failed monsoon with only one third of the state having normal monsoon so far.
