Thursday, June 18, 2015

Monsoon In India

This Norwegian site comes up in Google search when I searched for monsoon data in Chennai.

This is the list of places with top rainfall in India this year (2015 YTD).

Few interesting places with excellent monsoon among those mentioned seem to be Amboli in Maharashtra (near Belgaum), Neriamangalam (Ernakulam District) and Chinnakallar (near Valparai - no wonder that). Note that the list of places will keep changing since the list is dynamic. Interestingly halfway through the monsoon (2 days beyond mid point), Agumbe is at 3397mm, Cherrapunji at 7070mm.

Good beginning to monsoon in 2015: 
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/monsoon-tracker-a-good-beginning/

As per the article India gets an average of about 880 mm of rainfall from Jun to Sep: about 170 mm each in June and September and about 270mm each in July and August.

As things stand on Aug 3rd 2015, it seems as though IMD's prediction about a deficient monsoon - about 90% of long term average (= LTA) - seems more likely to be true than Skymet's prediction (about 104% of LTA). As of today, we India seems to be at about 94% LTA.

When I got the graphs from the IMD site, one question that kept popping in my mind was whether the data was consistent across years - meaning was the LTA the same across years (or atleast only marginally different), meaning if a district got 940mm rainfall in one  year and 1340 mm in another year, it would not be considered to have normal rainfall in both the years. I would expect it to be normal in one year and scanty / surplus in the other year. 

After living for about 2 decades in Chennai, I still am not sure what the LTA annual rainfall in Chennai is. 800mm? 1200mm? 1400mm (also this and this)? I think I have seen all the figures in some source or the other.


Historical monsoon data for the last 100+ years in pictorial format is here. Unfortunately I am not able to locate historical tabular information on rainfall.

Historical monsoon data for years 2008 to 2014 taken from http://www.imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dynamic/monsoon_report_20nn.pdf (replace nn by years from 08 to 14).


2015 till date


2014



2013

2012


2011


2010




2009







2008




Additional reading: 

  1. http://www.skymetweather.com/content/weather-news-and-analysis/southwest-monsoon-in-india-2015-news-and-update/
  2. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/IMD-Monsoon-to-be-good-through-June/articleshow/47727309.cms
  3. 1000mm rainfall in Bombay in Jun 2015: http://www.skymetweather.com/content/weather-news-and-analysis/monsoon-rain-in-mumbai-to-touch-1000mm-mark-by-june-end/
  4. http://www.skymetweather.com/monsoon-in-india/cumulative-rainfall-for-cities-of-india/
  5. http://www.imd.gov.in/section/hydro/img/seasonal-rain.jpg
  6. http://www.walkthroughindia.com/walkthroughs/top-5-indian-places-with-highest-average-annual-rainfall/
  7. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/education/story/five-wettest-places-in-india/1/445735.html

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