HYDERABAD: No drought, better distribution of rainfall than last year, and weak El Nino conditions - this is what the India Meteorological Department (IMD) Hyderabad director-in-charge YK Reddy had to say about the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh monsoon, adding that it would be extremely beneficial for farmers.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, Reddy said, “The all-India forecast is applicable for Telangana as well. The forecast is that 96 per cent of the long-period average (LPA) rainfall is expected in this monsoon season. That amounts to 717 mm of rainfall in Telangana.”
other words, LPA is the average rainfall received by the country as a whole during the south-west monsoon, for a 50-year period. This acts as a benchmark against which the rainfall in any monsoon season is measured. When the rainfall is between 96 and 104 per cent of the LPA it is deemed as a “normal” monsoon. “Overall, the country is expected to have a well-distributed rainfall scenario during the 2019 monsoon season, which will be beneficial to farmers in the country during the ensuing kharif season,” he said.
Reddy added that the El Nino phenomenon was weak and that it would continue till the end of the monsoon. “The temperature is 0.8 degrees above normal — 0.5 (degrees) and above is weak El Nino. It is expected to be like that throughout the season. If El Nino is stronger, then monsoon would be weaker.”
Though there has been no specific forecast of the time of the monsoon’s onset over Telangana, Reddy said, “Generally, the onset time is June 1 over Kerala, and over Telangana, June first week.”
As for Telangana, normal rainfall is pegged at 755.1 mm, with the past few years seeing a deficit of -21 mm, -13 mm and -2 mm in 2015, 2017 and 2018 respectively. It was only in 2016 that the State received surplus rainfall of +19 mm. IMD data also shows that while coastal Andhra Pradesh has received abundant rainfall from time to time, the Rayalseema region has not.