July ends with above normal rainfall; monsoon deficiency comes down to minus 9%

July ended with above normal rainfall, bringing much needed relief to several parts of the country and bringing down the overall deficiency to minus nine per cent, MeT department officials said on Tuesday.

The next two weeks are also expected to bring good rainfall and the monsoon deficiency is likely to come down further, K J Ramesh, who retired as India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General on Tuesday, said.

July recorded 298.3 millimetres of rainfall as against the normal precipitation of 285.3 millimetres, Mritunjay Mohapatra, the new IMD Director General said.

"The rainfall in July was 105 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA), five per cent above normal," Mohapatra said.

The IMD had predicted 95 per cent of the LPA with an error margin of plus or minus nine per cent.

However, Jharkhand, south interior Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Rayalseema region of Andhra Pradesh, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Himachal Pradesh, Gangetic West Bengal had received below normal rainfall in July.

Bihar, Assam, several parts of coastal Maharashtra witnessed floods.

June had recorded rainfall of 87 per cent of the LPA, which was deficient, casting fear of drought like situation.

This year, monsoon hit Kerala on June 8, a week after its normal onset date. Its progress was also sluggish in the initial days and covered the entire country on July 19, four days than its normal date.

The official rainfall season in India starts from June to September.

The overall rainfall deficiency in the country until July 31 was minus 9 per cent. The deficiency on June 30 was 33 per cent.

The coming two months are expected to be good as El-Nino has entered a neutral phase and the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is also positive, Ramesh added.

El Nino is associated with heating of the Pacific waters while a positive IOD is linked to the cooling of the Indian Ocean waters. Both are believed to impact the monsoon.