This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: India is currently in the middle of its summer monsoon, but this year's rainfall presents an interesting paradox. Much of the country has received less rain than usual so far, yet has still been hit by severe floods and landslides.
In the southern state of Kerala, for example, devastating floods occurred despite the overall monsoon rainfall remaining well below average. A weaker monsoon does not necessarily mean an absence of extreme rainfall. Rainfall can be highly uneven, with long dry spells broken by intense cloudbursts that cause flooding and landslides.
This year's experience in Kerala illustrates the apparent contradiction: A season that is dry overall can still produce devastating rainfall. Amid this highly uneven monsoon, attention is also turning to something happening thousands of kilometers away in the tropical Pacific Ocean: El Niño. It is well established that El Niño years, when certain parts of the Pacific are warmer than usual, are often associated with weaker Indian monsoon rainfall.
Meanwhile, La Niña—the opposite state to El Niño—tends to favor wetter conditions. This year, El Niño conditions have developed rapidly in the Pacific, with forecasts suggesting it could become exceptionally strong. A super-strong El Niño could have important implications for hundreds of millions of people across India, particularly later in the monsoon, when the relationship between the two tends to become stronger.
Before the monsoon even began, the India Meteorological Department was already expecting a weaker-than-usual season, partly because of the anticipated development of El Niño. Its first long-range forecast in April predicted June–September rainfall at around 92% of the long-term average. So far, rainfall has broadly followed this below-normal outlook, although with considerable fluctuations.
By mid-June, rainfall across India was nearly 40% below normal, before several active monsoon spells reduced the deficit. By early August, cumulative rainfall was still around 12% below average nationally. But these national and seasonal averages hide an important part of the picture.
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