After a disastrous August, the southwest monsoon is expected to perform appreciably better in September, with rains projected to be more than 110 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA). However, this won’t be good enough to wipe out the entire seasonal deficit.

       According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), cumulative seasonal rainfall in the June-to-September months is now expected to be around 96 per cent of the LPA, which will be on the lower end of the ‘normal’ band.

       Rainfall between 96-104 per cent of the LPA is deemed normal. The LPA of the four-month monsoon season is 89 cm. In September alone, the LPA is around 17 cm, which is among the lowest of the four-month monsoon season.

       Therefore, even if it rains heavily in September, it won’t cover up for the full season shortfall, but will most likely boost the prospects of the next rabi crop and fill up the reservoirs.

       Monsoon in August was almost 24 per cent below normal, which was the sixth driest August since 1901.

       It came on the back of a 7 per cent monsoon shortfall in July. July and August are two most critical months of the monsoon season because the volume of rain is the highest in these months.

       “Purely from an agricultural point of view, I don’t think any big monsoon revival in September will boost prospects of kharif crops as sowing is almost over and whatever shortfall in area is there in oilseeds, coarse cereals and cotton will remain. But, yes, good September rains will help in filling up the reservoirs. Concerns about oilseeds and cotton prices will nonetheless continue,” Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist Care Ratings said.

       The met department in June had said that southwest monsoon this year is expected to be 101 per cent of the LPA with most parts of the country, except regions of eastern and north-eastern India, expected to get normal to above normal rainfall.

       IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said that there were three major factors that led to less than expected performance of southwest monsoon this year.

       “First the behavior of negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) wasn’t anticipated correctly, secondly the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) too wasn’t favorable for much of the monsoon months and thirdly lesser number of Low Pressure Areas (LPAs) formed over the Bay of Bengal this year as compared to normal,” Mohapatra told Business Standard.

       He said all the three factors contributed to actual monsoons differing from what was forecast but it is difficult to say as to how much and to what extent did the three factors contribute to the monsoon's below par performance.

       “We will surely analyse all the multi-modal weather models which were considered for arriving at the consensus forecast for 2021 and pin-point which are the weather phenomenon which the models could not capture and reason for the same,” Mohapatra.

       For September, the met department said that the forecast suggests that above normal to normal rainfall is likely over many areas of central India, while normal to below normal rainfall is most likely over many areas of northwest and northeast India and southern most parts of peninsular India.

       "Overall rainfall deficit does raise some concerns, but may not be raising alarm bells yet from an agriculture perspective (especially foodgrains). A late monsoon revival in Sep-21 may augur well for soil moisture/reservoir levels and in turn Rabi sowing, but a late withdrawal or unseasonal rains extending into early Oct-21 may be more damaging," QuantEco Research said in a note.