Country observes first bout of excess weekly rain this season

After very poor Monsoon rain in June, the month of July too had been panning out in the same fashion, but some good rain during the week ended 24^th July has brought down the cumulative deficit in the country to a large extent. The rainfall during the week has been about 20% excess – first time in this Monsoon season.

A good Monsoon system that formed in the Bay of Bengal travelled right from Odisha to Gujarat across Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra giving good rain in the region during the entire week.

Before this system emerged and gave some significant rain over east, central and west India, these regions were staring at an enormous deficit which has now narrowed down to some extent.

Place	Deficit till 16th July	Deficit till 24th July
Odisha	-31%	-3%
Chhattisgarh	-36%	-7%
East Madhya Pradesh	-44%	-19%
West Madhya Pradesh	-48%	-7%
Vidarbha	-50%	-12%
Madhya Maharashtra	-62%	-30%
Gujarat Region	-84%	-48%
Saurashtra	-73%	-56%
East Rajasthan	-61%	-39%
West Rajasthan	-70%	-45%

This spell of rain - week ended 24^th July – has not only improved the regional deficit but the cumulative deficit has also come down from 36% to 24% at the moment.

However, the concern over poor rains in the country still exists. According to Skymet meteorology Division in India, the average rainfall for the country from 1^st June to 16^th July is 308 mm, whereas there had been 196.9 mm of rain.

Meanwhile, the average rainfall for the country from 1^st June to 24^th July is 385.8 mm, while the country has received 291.1 mm of rain, which means there has been 95 mm of rain during this period against the normal of 78 mm, which is 20% excess rain.

Though this figure shows some signs of improvement, forecast suggest that rain is again going to reduce in the country for the next few days and the cumulative deficit may change again.