India's monsoon sits 15 percent below normal and is on course for the weakest season since 2009

Cumulative rainfall in the June to September monsoon is 15 percent below the long-period average, the India Meteorological Department said as the season began to withdraw. If that gap holds, 2026 will be the weakest monsoon since 2009, when the shortfall was 18 percent. The weather office had forecast a 10 percent deficit in May. The live number is worse.

The southern peninsula is 28 percent short. The east and northeast are 25 percent short. The northwest is 10 percent short. Central India is 6 percent short. The national figure stands at 85 percent of the long-period average, against 108 percent in recent stronger years. June opened with a 40 percent hole. Later months closed some of it. They did not close enough.

Withdrawal and a late cyclone bet

IMD said conditions were becoming favourable for withdrawal from parts of West Rajasthan around 19 September, five days later than last year's 14 September start. Isolated to scattered rain and thunderstorms were still expected on 19 September over Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab and west Uttar Pradesh. A low-pressure area was likely over the Andaman Sea around the same date and could feed rain into the east and south later in the week.

Christian Werner of Global Weather Climate Analytics said a Bay of Bengal cyclone could still form in the last week of September. He also said such a storm would do little to the national deficit, which he put in a 13 to 16 percent range. Forecasters placing odds on Lancaster University's CRUCIAL platform assigned a 68 percent chance that the season ends 10 to 20 percent below normal, according to the platform's founder, Mark Roulston.

Crops, prices and El Niño

Rice, sugar and cotton are the crops most exposed. The government has already allowed duty-free sugar imports and has used onion subsidies. Headline food inflation was 5.95 percent in August. A late burst of rain can still save some standing kharif fields. It cannot rebuild soil moisture for rabi sowing if the withdrawal stays dry in the northwest.

El Niño is the larger backdrop. Reports tied to the IMD briefing said the event had crossed a 2 degree Celsius threshold, began in June, and is expected to peak around November and December and run into early 2027. That path points to a milder winter and to continued pressure on rain-fed agriculture after the monsoon ends. Moody's, in a separate note on the same day, listed El Niño food prices as a reason its new 7 percent GDP forecast could still slip.

The operational fact for the next fortnight is simple. Withdrawal has a start date. The season total does not yet have an end number. Every millimetre that falls after 19 September still counts. Every millimetre that does not fall in the southern peninsula and the east is already baked into the 15 percent hole.