The monsoon leaves a 13 percent deficit, the driest season since 2016

The southwest monsoon has withdrawn from most of India having delivered 759.4 millimetres of rain between June and September, against a long-period average of 868.6 millimetres. That is a deficit of about 12.6 to 13 percent, and the driest monsoon since 2016. The India Meteorological Department's season numbers put 2026 as the fourth-lowest monsoon since 2001 and the 13th lowest since 1901.

The national figure hides a split that is worse than the average. East and northeast India recorded 1,017.1 millimetres, the lowest monsoon total for that region in the IMD record going back to 1901. The southern peninsula recorded 542.0 millimetres, its fourth-lowest over the same span. Central India was closer to normal. Maharashtra was not: the state finished about 18 percent short, and the state government has marked 265 of 358 talukas, across 32 districts, as drought-affected. That is 74 percent of the state's talukas, with relief announced for farmers and agricultural labourers.

The season did not fail for lack of an early start. The monsoon reached the Andaman Sea on 16 May, six days ahead of the usual date. Withdrawal began on 19 September, two days later than the normal date. A long season and a low total means the breaks in July and August were not filled in September. Reservoirs that depend on those two months are the ones now short, and the rabi sowing window opens with that shortage already on the books.

The IMD expects rainfall over most of the country to stay below normal in October. It expects the October to December northeast monsoon, which supplies about 30 percent of the south peninsula's annual rain and about half of the annual rain in Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal, to be normal for the peninsula as a whole. That is a second season, not a repair of the first. A paddy farmer in eastern Uttar Pradesh or a soybean farmer in Marathwada does not get the northeast monsoon.

The economic line runs from the taluka map to the mandi. A 13 percent national deficit is the kind of number that used to be absorbed by groundwater and by procurement stocks. A 74 percent drought declaration in Maharashtra, and a century-low in the east and northeast, is harder to absorb. Hydropower on reservoirs that missed the peak weeks will run fewer hours. Rural spending on two-wheelers, cement and gold, the series economists watch after a weak monsoon, usually softens one quarter later. Food inflation depends on which crops missed the rain. Pulses and oilseeds in the deficit belts are the first place to look. Wheat, sown now, depends on residual soil moisture and on whether October stays dry, as the IMD expects.

The long-period average itself is a 50-year mean. A 13 percent miss against that mean is a large miss, and 2016 is the last year that matched it. The years between were not all kind, but none of them printed a season total this low. That is the comparison that makes this withdrawal different from a routine September close.

Maharashtra's 265 talukas are the sharpest administrative fact on the map. A drought declaration opens relief, wage work and, in some cases, a pause on loan recovery. It does not put water in a tank that did not fill. The northeast's 1,017.1 millimetres is the sharpest meteorological fact. A region that usually drowns in June finished the season at the bottom of a 125-year chart. Both numbers will still be the ones that matter when the rabi estimates are written in December.