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India recorded the highest rainfall this monsoon since 1994, the weather department said classifying it ‘above normal’ as the season officially ended on Monday.
Monsoon still remains active in several parts of the country and withdrawal of the southwest monsoon is likely to commence from northwest India around October 10, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, adding that this is the longest recorded delay in withdrawal of the monsoon.
Monsoon normally starts withdrawing beginning September 1 from west Rajasthan.
IMD Director General Mritunjay Mohapatra said rainfall activity over Gujarat and Bihar will start decreasing from Tuesday.
“Quantitatively, the 2019 Southwest monsoon season comes to end with above normal seasonal (June to September) rainfall. Quantitatively monsoon seasonal rainfall was 110 per cent of its Long Period Average (LPA),” the IMD said.
LPA is the average of rainfall between 1961 and 2010, which is 88 cm.
The country recorded ‘below normal’ rainfall in 2018.
Monsoon made an onset over Kerala on June 8, a week after its normal date of arrival. The deficiency in June was 33 per cent. However, the next three months received more rainfall than normal.
Of the four-month monsoon season, August recorded 115 per cent rainfall of the LPA, first time since 1996 (119 per cent). Similarly, the rainfall recorded in September (152 per cent of the LPA) was second highest after 1917 (165 per cent of the LPA).
July recorded 105 per cent of the rainfall of the LPA.
