With Southwest Monsoon 2016 establishing itself in Peninsular India and about three weeks into the onset of Southwest Monsoon over Bay it is time to see how things have evolved over these three weeks or so. Last year also we had a series of posts looking at the monsoon statistics from different perspective to give an alternate take on how the monsoon evolved over the season. Starting from today we will do a similar exercise of putting a perspective to the Southwest Monsoon 2016 Story so far. 
The rainfall map pretty much sums up the Southwest Monsoon story so far with only Peninsular India in excess thanks to the thunderstorms that happened in the first week of June. While they were not strictly monsoon rains it is counted into the tally since it happened after June 1 the climatological date for SWM Season. If not for the thunderstorm rains things would have been even more bad.
This shows up if one were to rank the met divisions that have seen the highest rainfall compared to normal expected rainfall for the period. All of the divisions are from South India with Coastal AP sitting on top thanks to the Upper Air Cyclonic Circulation which provided for some high rainfall over the region in the first week of June
While monsoon is normally weak during the early part of June over Central & NW India what is of worry is Assam & Meghalaya seeing almost one third of normal rainfall so far. The poor movement of Bay branch is showing in the poor numbers for Assam & Meghalaya where typically at this time of the year some seriously heavy rains happen.
The last image sums up Southwest Monsoon 2016 Story so far. Only South India showing positive anomaly and all the other regions showing negative anomaly over normal rainfall. Almost 60% of the country is in deficit or worse categories which indicates how the monsoon has not had any impact what so ever beyond the Southern Peninsula. 
If one were to run a district wise rainfall chart Southern Peninsular India is showing a very good geographical spread with only about 8 districts in the red with most districts in excess category.
These are early days so nothing to worry yet but with two consecutive lesser than average rainfall years preceding us every lost day will count in terms of how much gain we can get on the water table over the next 3 months or so. This will be essential for most of the country to survive till the next monsoon.