India Monsoon Seen Missing Forecast of Normal Rain This Year

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.

SOURCEBloomberg Quint

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