​Sound and fury: on the monsoon

The southwest monsoon stormed into Kerala, a week ahead of its scheduled arrival on June 1. This was not a surprise because as early as the first week of May, meteorologists had tipped off the country about its early arrival over the Andaman Sea — a crucial pit stop before its advent over Kerala. A May onset is not an exceptional occurrence — it has happened four times since 2014 — but additional support from a pre-cyclonic circulation in the Arabian Sea gave it a tremendous surge due to which several parts of Maharashtra and the Konkan coast saw the monsoon reach their shores earlier than anticipated. It was the first time in 35 years that Mumbai, which usually welcomes the monsoon around June 10, saw a May onset. Even prior to the onset, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), as far back as mid-April, had forecast an ‘above normal’ monsoon rainfall, or 5% more than the historical average of 87 cm. Following the monsoon’s onset, it has retained this outlook of ‘above normal’ rain, and has since increased it to 6% above the average.

One of the quirks of how the IMD measures monsoon rainfall is that it only counts rainfall from June 1 to September 30 as ‘monsoon rainfall.’ Thus all the rain that has flooded Kerala, Mumbai and other cities since May 24 (when the monsoon landed) is accounted as ‘pre-monsoon’ rainfall. In its update, the IMD said that it anticipates June to receive ‘above normal’ rains. This means that the rains so far are a mere trailer to what is to come. This could be good news for kharif sowing and help the country improve its stocks of grain as well as shore up reserves for exports. The way the monsoon and forecasts are framed in the Indian context is that more rain is seen as a positive, given its connection to agriculture and that a large part of India is entirely reliant, disconcertingly, on the monsoon for a healthy crop. With accelerating urbanisation, excess rains are not always an unmitigated good. The floods that overwhelm cities are no longer restricted to the major metropolises but also tier-2 and tier-3 towns. While several of these cities are not even equipped for ‘normal’ rainfall, administrations — State and central — must seriously incorporate the portent from climate change which translates into citizens navigating erratic rainfall and greater disruptions from floods. While improved and high-resolution forecasts are a positive development, they have limited value without a wide-ranging societal effort to incorporate its warnings to improve everyday living.