VIJAYAWADA: Though rainfall in the State is reported as normal overall, when the district-wise rainfall is taken into consideration, there is wide variation. Eight districts have deficient rainfall, of which one district has large deficiency, three districts have normal while two districts have large excess rainfall. Compared to Coastal Andhra, Rayalaseema had better rainfall in the first two weeks of the Southwest Monsoon in the state.
According to the data with the Andhra Pradesh State Development Planning Society (APSDPS), the rainfall received in the state in the last 19 days was only 59.3 mm as against the normal 68.1 mm, a deficiency of 12.9 per cent. According to weathermen, it is categorised as normal rainfall only.
However, when the district-wise data is taken into consideration, eight districts — Srikakulam, Vizianagram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari, West Godavari, Guntur, Prakasam, Nellore — have deficit rainfall, with Nellore having a large deficit. As against the normal rainfall of 43.1 mm, only 13.7 mm of rainfall was recorded in Nellore, which is 68.2 per cent deficient. Srikakulam district with 45.9 per cent, Prakasam with 43.9 per cent and Visakhapatnam with 43.5 per cent defiant rainfall occupied the next three places.
In contrast, Kadapa district, neighbour of Nellore district, reported the surplus rainfall of 84.1 per cent. As against the normal rainfall of 56 mm, Kadapa received 103.1 mm. However, it is Anantapur district, which has the highest surplus rainfall — 87.1 per cent — in the state. As against normal rainfall of 50.3 mm, the district received 94.1 mm. The other two Rayalayseema districts — Chittoor and Kurnool — received normal rains.
Krishna is the only coast district that received normal rainfall in the last 19 days. When contacted, IMD officials said such a phenomenon is normal and a balance in rainfall across the state will be achieved in the coming days. Though it was feared that the onset of southwest monsoon in the state would be delayed, it arrived in the state on time and covered the entire state one day earlier than normal. Normally SW monsoon arrives in the state on June 4 and covers the entire state by June 11. Meanwhile, farmers are hoping for evenly spread rains instead of spells of heavy rains with a large number of dry days in between.