NEW DELHI: The southwest (summer) monsoon started withdrawing from some parts of west Rajasthan on Sunday against the normal date of Sept 17, the IMD said. It marked the beginning of this year’s monsoon retreat from the country. Normally, the withdrawal process ends on Oct 15 – a few days ahead of the onset of winter monsoon in Peninsular India. It’s the earliest withdrawal of monsoon since 2015, when the retreat began on Sept 4, under the old regime where the normal date of beginning of the withdrawal used to be Sept 1 based on records during 1901-1940.It’s also the earliest withdrawal since 2020 under the new regime when the normal date was revised as Sept 17 based on data during 1971-2019. Under the new regime, monsoon onset over Kerala remains the same (June 1). There is also no change in the final withdrawal date over south India (Oct 15). The normal withdrawal date for Delhi is Sept 25.
Announcing the beginning of the retreat of summer monsoon on Sunday, the IMD also predicted that the conditions are favourable for its withdrawal from some more parts of Rajasthan and some parts of Punjab and Gujarat during the next 2-3 days.Meanwhile, heavy to very heavy rainfall is predicted by the Met department over northeastern states and Maharashtra for the next three days.Normally, monsoon covers the entire India in 38 days (June 1-July 8). This year, it covered the entire country in 37 days after making an early onset on May 24 and covering the whole India by June 29.Though early onset/withdrawal or coverage has nothing to do with the overall status of the monsoon, it certainly guides farming activities, and water and hydro-power management during the rainy season.Early onset of monsoon helped farmers begin early sowing of kharif (summer sown) crops this year. The early withdrawal by just three days will, however, not impact the acreage as the sowing operation has already completed in most parts of the country. Even all key reservoirs have enough water to sustain the Rabi (winter sown) crops during Oct-March cycle.IMD has predicted an ‘above normal’ monsoon this year and it’s already reflected in over 7% more than normal cumulative (June 1 – Sept 14) rainfall in the country so far with northwest India recording nearly 32% more than normal rainfall during the period, leading to multiple disasters including flooding and crop damage in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir.Except east & northeast India that faced a cumulative rainfall deficit of nearly 20%, the rest of the country received surplus rainfall with the central India getting 10.5% more than normal rainfall and south peninsular India getting 7.5% more than normal rainfall during the monsoon season.Good rainfall this year in most parts of the country helped increase the total acreage (1105 lakh hectares) which is more than last year (1078 lakh hectares) and also more than the normal acreage (1096 lakh hectares) for Kharif crops.
