February 2021 goes on record to be the driest in the last 10 years. The good show of January 2021 with a Pan-India surplus of 17% was spoiled by the poor show in February which plunged to a deficiency of 60%. February 2021 recorded rainfall of 7.6mm against normal of 23.5mm to get listed as one of the most deficient months.
A large contribution to February rainfall comes from Northwest and Northeast India. Both these regions remained highly deficit. The entire hilly states of North remained poor for the winter season and suffered deficiency of 70%, 56% and 45% in the sub-divisions of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh respectively. Also Punjab, the agriculture bowl of India suffered a shortfall of 72% during the season. However, most sub-division over South Peninsula witnessed rain surplus states except Telangana.
Large deficiency over North India is attributed to ‘No Show’ of western disturbances during February which otherwise observes the highest frequency during the month. There was only 1 active western disturbance that caused fairly widespread rainfall between 4th and 6th February. The absence of rain has resulted in unusually warm conditions over the region and record high temperatures have been witnessed over most parts including the national capital Delhi. These arid conditions will continue for the plains for the next 10days and above normal temperatures are expected on most days during this period.
