Time To Define The New Normal

The monsoon of 2017 has challenged India's conventional and simplistic definition of the complex tropical circulation

- Shreeshan Venkatesh

IT WOULDN'T be inaccurate to say that the 2017 monsoon has been all about floods. At least 11 states experienced floods since the onset of the monsoon in June. Till the magazine went to print, 150 districts, or over a fifth of the country’s districts, have received more than 100 mm of rain in a single day. More than 1,000 people have died and several millions affected. The situation has not abated.

But as we enter the final month of the monsoon, it would seem paradoxical to say that the monsoon of 2017 is also about a drought looming over large parts of the country. Around 40 per cent of the districts have received deficient rainfall. Parts of north, central and south India are about to face a drought. The distribution map issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) shows a large corridor of deficient rainfall areas (see map).

Consider this: only less than a fourth of the 400-odd weekly monsoon observations from June 1 at the 36 meteorological subdivisions recorded a normal rainfall. Yet, IMD has categorised all four geographical regions within the margins of a “normal” rainfall. That means extreme rainfall for a few days has compensated—and in some cases over-compensated—for the striking deficiency, indicating widespread imbalances in rainfall distribution.