India’s monsoon, which irrigates more than half of the country’s farmland, is likely to be below an earlier forecast of normal showers, Skymet Weather Services Pvt. said.
Precipitation during the June-September rainy season is forecast to be 92 percent of the long-term average of about 89 centimeters (35 inches), compared with a prediction of 100 percent made in April, the New Delhi-based private forecaster said on its website. The forecast has a margin of error of 5 percent, it said.
India’s monsoon, which irrigates more than half of the country’s farmland, is likely to be below an earlier forecast of normal showers, Skymet Weather Services Pvt. said.
Precipitation during the June-September rainy season is forecast to be 92 percent of the long-term average of about 89 centimeters (35 inches), compared with a prediction of 100 percent made in April, the New Delhi-based private forecaster said on its website. The forecast has a margin of error of 5 percent, it said.
Monsoon rainfall has been about 6 percent below normal so far since June 1, according to the India Meteorological Department. Rain in July, which accounts for a third of the country’s total annual rain, was about 94 percent, data from the weather office showed.
“There will be some concerns but I don’t see any large impact on agricultural output,” Devendra Kumar Pant, chief economist at India Ratings and Research Pvt. Ltd., a local unit of Fitch Ratings. The deficit is only in some parts of the country, which are primarily growing paddy-rice. “You have to look at the spread across the country.”
Skymet put the chance of below-normal monsoon showers at 60 percent and predicted a 15 percent possibility of a normal rainy season. There was also a 25 percent chance of a drought this year, it said.
