Monsoon update ; The advancement of the Southwest monsoon improved slightly as the rainfall was 36% below normal during the week ended July 8, 2009 compared to 46% in the preceding week.

The advancement of the Southwest monsoon improved slightly as the rainfall was 36% below normal during the week ended July 8, 2009 compared to 46% in the preceding week. The geographical distribution also improved a bit as the number of divisions with deficient/scanty rainfall has gone down to 25 for the week ended July 8, 2009 from 30 in preceding week. The key takeaways of our analysis upto July 8, 2009 are as under:

• The weighted average rainfall across the country continued to remain way below 10-year average as it stood at 36% below normal for week ended July 8, 2009.
• Number of divisions receiving deficient/scanty rainfall went down to 25 during the week.
•  In the rain dependent areas the weighted average rainfall stood at 40.1% below normal.
•  The total rainfall till date is now just about 18.5% of the normal (see table IV) rainfall for the full season compared with 32.7% for the corresponding period last year.
•  The crop sowing has also been hit by poor monsoon as total area under cultivation for Kharif crop till date is down by 34% over the same period last year. The area under cultivation for coarse cereals and oilseeds are down by 55% and 62% respectively.
•  The precipitation graph for next one week is indicating slightly stronger advancement of the monsoon covering almost whole of India except north and south Karnataka.