Wednesday marked the end of the four-month-long southwest monsoon, which saw India receive 767mm of rainfall. This total is 10.5% below the long-term average, making it the 17th lowest since 1901. An early El Nino caused this dry spell, which left many areas struggling as only July recorded a surplus.
Wednesday marked the end of the four-month-long southwest monsoon, which normally accounts for 75% of India's annual rainfall. How was the rainfall performance this season? Bad is the short answer, with total monsoon rainfall being the 17th lowest since 1901 (earliest available data). This detailed analysis explains exactly what this entails.
An early El Nino -- a cyclical warming of the central eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean that crimps monsoon rain -- meant that rainfall would be underwhelming. According to the India Meteorological Department's (IMD) real-time gridded data, India received 767mm rainfall this monsoon in terms of area weighted average. This is the 17th lowest monsoon rainfall for since 1901 and 10.5% below the 1971-2020 average for the same period, which IMD currently considers as the Long Period Average (LPA) for tracking monsoon rain. This also makes the 2026 monsoon the driest since 2009, when India got 722mm rain by weighted average. Only July recorded a surplus this monsoon, although the deficit was relatively small in September too. To be sure, IMD's published statistics may show slightly different numbers because they use a somewhat different method for computing India averages.