India has the rare distinction of having a largely varied terrain, from deserts to snowbound mountains and deep undulating valleys to vast plain meadows. Harsh and humid to dry and freezing weather conditions remain an exclusive feature. Being `AGRO` intensive country, rainfall plays an important role on allocation of resources to have a judicious balance among all the needy. Variability of rainfall as such being very large from annual average of 13 cm over West Rajasthan to 1100 cm over Meghalaya. Also, along with seasonal, the spatial and temporal variability remains very large.
75% of annual rainfall is experienced during the Southwest Monsoon season. But this does not take away the importance and influence of winter rains particularly for north and northeastern parts of the country. Northeast India receives very heavy rainfall during the southwest monsoon season and even holds the world record of being the heaviest at Mausiram. This year however, the monsoon rainfall was largely deficient and the winter rains seem to be following the same track.
Most of the stations in Assam valley have recorded rainfall of about 2 mm or less during this month. The respective amounts being 2.7mm, 2mm, 1mm, 0.1mm, and 0.4mm at Dibrugarh, Guwahati, Jorhat , Silchar and Tezpur. The records were no different even in the month of December. As of now, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura have recorded NIL rainfall in this month and the deficiency exceeds 90% in Assam.
With scanty rainfall in January, the overall deficiency for the season may increase to become insurmountable. In the absence of rains, the maximum temperatures are also on the rise. Lakhimpur has consistently recorded day maximum of 29˚C and Guwahati not far behind at 28˚C which are about 5-7˚C above normal.
| Sub Division | Actual Rainfall(mm) | Normal Rainfall(mm) | Deficiency(%) |
| Assam& Meghalaya | 1.5 | 14.8 | 90 |
| Arunachal Pradesh | 18.9 | 42.7 | 56 |
| NMMT | 1.2 | 12.6 | 90 |
(Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram & Tripura)
