India's Southwest monsoon managed to escape the deficient/drought tag in Aug-21 by a whisker, with cumulative rainfall at 9% below LPA. Defying hopes of a normal activity as per IMD
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India’s Southwest monsoon managed to escape the deficient/drought tag in Aug-21 by a whisker, with cumulative rainfall at 9% below LPA. Defying hopes of a normal activity as per IMD, standalone Aug-21 clocked a deep rainfall deficit of 24.1% - the worst August outcome seen since 2009. IMD forecasts Sep-21 rainfall to be above normal at >110% of LPA with the current deficiency of 9% in seasonal rainfall during Jun-Aug 2021 to reduce to be around lower end of the normal range by the end of the season.
The rainfall deficiency notwithstanding, area sown under Kharif crops made good progress in Aug-21; ~1.8% lower vis-à-vis last year but marginally higher than historically normal area sown. The dichotomy between monsoon performance and Kharif area sown can perhaps be explained by looking at an alternate assessment of rainfall performance – Actual rainfall weighted by food grain production for key agri state level. As per this metric, rainfall performance has fared better throughout the season and as of end Aug-21 stood at a sober 4% deficit. It appears that largely non-agri states with sizeable rainfall deficits such as - Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Kerala along with some of the NE states have weighed on headline monsoon performance.