Rain watch for August 24-30: Monsoon remains weak; water storage low
Weak monsoon in August and uneven distribution of rainfall have raised concerns over impact on kharif crop and consequent inflationary pressures
The uneven distribution of rainfall continued, with southern regions going further into deficit and the eastern region’s large deficiency persisting
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With August drawing to a close, monsoon rainfall continued to remain weak, raising concerns over crop cultivation impacting inflation, while water reservoir storage levels are low. Cumulatively, pan-India rainfall is 7.6 percent below long period average (between June 1 and August 27), shows an analysis by Barclays based on Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) data.
According to IMD, subdued rainfall activity is likely to continue over the next five days, with dry weather over most parts of the country, except over the Andaman-Nicobar Islands, Northeast India and extreme south Peninsular India.
The uneven distribution of rainfall continued, with southern regions going further into deficit and the eastern region’s large deficiency persisting. “Monsoon rainfall continues to be deficient, with uneven distribution on a cumulative basis. With completion of kharif sowing, adequate rainfall in the remaining monsoon period will be critical for crop maturity,” says Barclays.
Any further increase over the rest of the monsoon period will largely be incremental as the area sown through August 25 was tad above the corresponding period of 2022. “Reduced sowing for pulses is a cause for concern, at just above 80 percent of the normal area sown. Within the major producer states, sowing in Maharashtra and Karnataka is lagging because of patchy rainfall,” says Rahul Bajoria, managing director, head of EM Asia (ex-China), economics, Barclays.
Also read: Rain watch for August 17-23 : Monsoon weakens, area sown for pulses lagging
Due to persistent deficient rainfall for most of August, reservoir levels have seen only marginal increases per week. As of August 23, storage in key reservoirs stood at 64 percent of total capacity. This is lower than last year’s level at this stage of the monsoon season (79 percent of available capacity), and is also lower than the historical average for this point in the season (current levels are 94 percent of the 10-year average).
