Southwest Monsoon Update ; The advancement of the Southwest monsoon improved slightly as the rainfall was 46% below normal during the week ended July 1, 2009 compared to 54% in the preceding week.

The advancement of the Southwest monsoon improved slightly as the rainfall was 46% below normal during the week ended July 1, 2009 compared to 54% in the preceding week. However, the geographical dispersion has worsened as the number of divisions with deficient/scanty rainfall has gone up to 30 for the week ended July 1, 2009 from 28 in preceding week. The key takeaways of our analysis upto July 1, 2009 are as under:

The weighted average rainfall across the country continued to remain way below 10-year average as it stood at 46% below normal for week ended July 1, 2009.  Number of divisions receiving deficient/scanty rainfall went up to 30 during the week.  In the rain dependent areas the weighted average rainfall stood at 52.4% below normal. The total rainfall till date is now just about 11.4% of the normal (see table IV) rainfall for the full season compared with 26.4% for the corresponding period last year. The precipitation graph for next one week is indicating slight advancement to areas like Madhya Pradesh, Marathwada and Vidarbha. States like Rajasthan, Gujarat, Punjab and Haryana may continue to face dry spells.