Monsoon onset delayed till 5 June: How late is too late?

Met department now expects the monsoon to make landfall in Kerala on 5 June, against initial forecast of 30 May 

 

New Delhi: The wait just got longer. The monsoon, which accounts for nearly 70% of India’s rainfall, has been delayed yet again. It is now expected to make landfall in Kerala only on 5 June.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had initially forecast that the monsoon would arrive on 30 May. It then revised the date to 4 June. Normally, the south-west monsoon sets in over Kerala around 1 June and then advances northwards and covers the entire country by 15 July.

While a delay in the onset may not have a direct impact on the performance of the June-to-September monsoon, it may delay sowing of crops in large parts of the country, increasing the pressure on agriculture, which is already reeling under the twin blows of last year’s drought and unseasonal rain earlier this year.

Weather forecasters in India have said the chances of the El Niño phenomenon—which is linked to droughts in India—persisting over the next few months is 80%.

In its first forecast for the season released in April, IMD said rainfall during this monsoon would be 93% of the long-period average, which is considered to be below average. A sub-par monsoon for the second successive year will hit crop production and could potentially disrupt the government’s plans to revive the economy.

“A delay of two or three days will not have an adverse effect on crop sowing. Only if it gets delayed by a week or so will there be a perceptible impact on agriculture, because crops do not get the full period of growth,” said Ramesh Chand, professor at the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research.

The farm sector accounts for 15% of India’s $1.98 trillion economy. The rains support two-thirds of India’s 1.25 billion population who live in rural areas and rely on farming.

Pranjul Bhandari, chief India economist at HSBC, said coupled with rising oil prices, a weak monsoon could see food prices rise, leading to higher levels of inflation.

“In short, much of the fall in inflation could be behind us. As such, we expect the Reserve Bank of India to make its final 25 basis point (1 basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point) cut to the repo (the rate at which it lends to banks) rate in the 2 June policy meeting, before going on hold. If the cut does materialize, we expect it to come with a hawkish commentary on mounting risks to inflation,” he added.

Although IMD’s official forecast in May said the monsoon would likely set over Kerala on 30 May, it gave an error margin of four days. In the last 10 years, the onset date forecast and actual date have been apart by three-four days.

The onset date forecast in 2012 was 1 June, but the monsoon finally arrived on 5 June, the biggest deviation in the past decade.

Although there has been rainfall in many parts of the country, the monsoon is deemed to have set in only if IMD finds that 60% of the 14 enlisted weather stations in Kerala and Karnataka report rainfall of 2.5mm or more for two consecutive days after 10 May. Other criteria for wind field and outgoing long-wave radiation must also be fulfilled.

“A delay in the onset of the monsoon has no bearing on the performance of the monsoon. Other factors like Indian Ocean dipole and El Niño have a bigger impact on the monsoon,” said Ajit Tyagi, former director general of IMD. Tyagi added that the advance of the monsoon from Kerala to the rest of the country can be sluggish even if it arrives early; on the other hand, it can advance quickly over the rest of the country even after a late onset.

An extended range prediction made by the Pune-based Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology said that till 11 June, monsoon will be weaker than normal. Further, rain will be confined only to northeast India and the southern peninsula for the first 15 days of June.

Meanwhile, heatwave conditions, which have killed at least 2,000 people over the last two weeks of May, continued at many places in Vidarbha, and at a few places in Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. A delay in the monsoon and the lack of rainfall can lead to the heat-wave persisting in some parts of the country.