NEW DELHI: India will receive heavy monsoon rains at the tail end of the four-month season, the chief of the weather office said on Tuesday (Sep 19), bringing farmers succour after the driest August in more than a century hit some summer crops.
The monsoon, the lifeblood of India’s US$3 trillion economy, delivers nearly 70 per cent of the rain needed to water its farms and recharge reservoirs and aquifers.
“Monsoon rains picked up pace after the 3rd or the 4th of this month,” Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, director-general of the India Meteorological Department, told Reuters in an interview.
“We now expect that the monsoon will be normal or above normal in September.”
Most rice areas except some eastern regions would get good rains, he said.
Also crucial for crops such as corn, cotton, soybeans, sugarcane and peanuts, the monsoon is 7 per cent above average in September but 8 per cent below average since the season began on Jun 1.
With a weak start, monsoon rains were 9 per cent below average in June before rebounding to 13 per cent above average in July. The monsoon was patchy again in August, with the weather office registering 36 per cent below average rains last month.
The weather office defines average, or normal, rainfall as ranging between 96 per cent and 104 per cent of the 50-year average of 87cm for the season.
Source: CNA
