July did not turn out to be a great month for monsoons atleast in many parts of the country and we have already started seeing some alarm bells being rung even at the highest levels. The Prime Minister (PM) was on record over the weekend talking about the concerns that he has about monsoons this time around.

However, Dr Ajit Tyagi of the MET Department, in an exclusive interview to CNBC-TV18 said the monsoon is expected to to revive over the next few days . He added that he expected rainfall in areas that have seen deficient rainfall in the next three weaks.

“North West India has seen scanty rains till now but it should get rain by August 13 or 15,” Dr Tyagi said.

Overall, the country’s rainfall could be near 87% of the long-term average, he said — a scaledown from the MET’s earlier prediction of 93% — and that he sees a 13-15% deficiency in rains.

Here is a verbatim transcript of the exclusive interview with Ajit Tyagi on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

Q: Your colleague Mr Hathwar painted a fairly bleak picture in many of the areas for the month of July. Has any improvement happened in the last three days since we spoke to him?

A: If you take July as a whole, we didn’t do bad, we had 95% – ofcourse in the pockets of Northwest India and Northeast India, the rainfall was deficit but Central India and Peninsula got a good rainfall. It is only after July 29, there has been the weakening of Monsoon and that has caused the worry as the rightly brought out by Prime Minister (PM) also but now we expect the monsoon to revive again. Already low pressures are developing over the bay, so in the next couple of days the monsoon should be revived and things should improve. This is a part of intra-seasonal variability that monsoon does weaken somewhere in the middle of its activity. So this happens between July 29 and maybe August 10 or August 11. But now we expect the monsoons to pick up again.

Q: In the next three days you are expecting rainfall over the deficient areas particularly Northwestern India?

A: Orissa, Bihar, East Uttar Pradesh (UP), Madhya Pradesh (MP), these areas also require rains because there had not been any rain for last ten days so wherever rain takes place, it is a welcome sign and gradually it will spread to the northwest India by August 13 – August 15.

Q: Has there been a big dispersion problem this time around while this 95% number is nice, it masks more than it reveals?

A: Yes, there has been skewed distribution – the Central India got good rain all through the month of July but Northwest and Northeast didn’t have that much of rainfall. Northeast has made up to some extent in the last week of July because in the last ten days we had been having rainfall in the northeast i.e. Bihar and West Bengal. So some amount of shortcomings have been made up for but northwest India continues to be particularly the West UP and Haryana – these two states are on the scanty side and maybe some rain between August 13 and August 15 will make up there.

Q: The areas which are droughted and there are several areas which are being spoken about as being droughted even at the end of July, how many of these zones can be made up in terms of August rainfall you think? Or do you think by the end of August, you will still have a drought situation in many parts of the country?

A: The drought is a combination of many things, rainfall alone is not the criteria, the right time sowing is also important. So the rainfall which has been deficit to the extent of more than 40% in June got made up to the great extent in July. But then there will be areas of scanty or drought condition pockets of country which, even if the normal monsoon conditions takes place this year, maybe little more because of the skewed distribution of the rainfall. But now onwards, things will improve in the large parts of the country which is the redeeming feature but overall as we have said earlier, rainfall will be on the lower side and we have lowered it down to 87% as was brought out in the key status in conference. We cannot make good whatever deficiencies have taken place but now onwards we think the monsoon rainfall should improve.

Q: So that 94% forecast earlier is 87%?

A: 93% was there, 87% is now. That is essentially because whatever deficiencies have taken place, they cannot be met because as of now the deficiency is 28%. This is the large number and we expect that to improve and 13-15% overall deficiency maybe there.

Q: What are your studies showing you? By the end of this month of August or going into September, will we have to do with the reality that this is a severely deficient rain season this time around?

A: This is one of the years which we may call on the lower side of 13-15% – 2002 was on the higher side. What I am saying is there has been deficient rainfall because of delayed onset and this ten days of break but what is important is that how much we can recover and hopefully now conditions are becoming that we may have a good distribution of rainfall in August and that should be the redeeming feature.

source: moneycontrol

Tags: MET department, monsoon, monsoon deficit, rainfall in india

Similar Posts:

• Monsoon 50 per cent below average in 2nd week
• It’s official now: this is a drought year
• Rainfall 31% below normal kharif crops still safe: Govt
• India faces worst drought in nearly 40 years
• Kharif output can fall 15% on poor monsoon: Chetan Ahya