Utilizing alternate sources
We are in the middle of winter and so far there has been no major activity of rain and snowfall. This year we again witnessed an increased temperature during the peak summer as most of the northern regions of the country recording a deficient rainfall during the monsoon.
This phenomenon has meant that the people will have to cope with shortage of water especially for the agricultural activity not only in Jammu and Kashmir but elsewhere as well.
Rainfall in August, which recorded 24 percent deficiency, was lowest in 19 years. The two major spells of weak monsoon which prevailed over the country — from August 9-16 and August 23-27 — when northwest, central and adjoining peninsular and west coast of India had subdued rainfall activities.
During August 2021, rainfall over the country as a whole was below Long Period Average (LPA) by minus 24 percent. It is also lowest August rainfall in last 19 years, since 2002.
The Southwest Monsoon season officially commences from June 1 and lasts till September 30. The month of June recorded 10 percent more rainfall, but both July and August clocked deficiency of seven and 24 percent respectively.
The country received 24 percent less than normal rainfall in August. Of the four meteorological divisions of the IMD, the central India division received 39 percent less. The division consists of a large swathe of area from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha. The deficiency in the northwest India division, which comprises northern Indian states, was 30 percent.
The deficiency was 10 percent in the south peninsula whereas the east and northeast division received two percent more rainfall than the normal. The IMD had predicted that the rainfall activity was expected to be normal during August. It predicted above normal precipitation for September but later the prediction did not prove fully accurate.
Notably, the intra-seasonal variation in terms of week by week rainfall variation over India shows that monsoon rainfall activities were largely subdued.
The formation of less number of low pressure systems (PLS) and their lesser number of days compared to the climatology and absence of their longer westward movements during the month of August and later in September 2021 contributed to the large deficient rainfall in central India as well as the entire Indian region.
The negative Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) over tropical Indian Ocean, unfavourable for Indian monsoon prevailed throughout the month of the August, which also contributed to deficient rainfall over India. A negative IOD is associated with the heating of waters of the Indian Ocean.
However, the deficient rainfall activity will leave a greater impact on various sectors where agricultural output determines the overall turnover. For ensuring that very little impact is felt across sectors some serious planning needs to be put in place. One such plan can be harnessing of ground water and optimum use of rain water as well.
KV Network
