On the 7th of June, 2024, Bangalore witnessed a rainbow light up its central business district after an evening Monsoon.
This year’s South West Monsoon came early into Karnataka and has further moved to cover the entire State in a big relief to farmers.
After suffering from unprecedented drought and severe heat wave during summer, which pushed them to their limits with crop loss and bleak future prospects, but ended up experiencing favorable weather conditions for monsoons whose current status is that it has covered the whole state as on June 6th , according to Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre.
The intensity of rainfall distribution has been described as ‘’fairly widespread’’ as more than 72% of the rain gauge stations at gram panchayats recorded over 2.5 mm of rain in excess within 24 hours ending at 8:30 am on friday.
According to KSNDMC records, from June 1 till June 7 it rained cumulatively about 45 mm across the state against normal rainfall of just about 35 mm for those days. The rains were in abundance mostly directed towards south interior Karnataka with a total of 62 mm compared to the normal average no 23 mm; whereas north interior karnataka have received total rainfall amounting to sixty millimeters while the expected amount was twenty four millimeters during this period.
However, these are early days for monsoons and only coastal and malnad belts have registered below average rainfall. A mere forty-five millimeters fell in coastal belt instead of hundred and five millimetre which is usual during first week of june where as malnad region showed little better performance by receiving thirty two millimeters rather than forty eight millimetres that were expected by this time according to KSNDMC report.
Also, there has been above normal pre-monsoon rains — from March-01st t0 May-31st — in all the regions of the State. This implies that the deficiency of the Coastal and Malnad region during June first week will not be significant.
During this period, 23 of 31 districts recorded rainfall in large excess category; one district with rains in excess category; normal rain was received by only a single district while 5 others experienced rainfall deficit and one district reported large deficit in rainfall.
Large Excess has been reported from areas formerly under severe heat wave conditions (north and central Karnataka). When rainfall is 60% above normal it is termed as “large excess.”
Such coastal belt areas as Udupi, Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada, Chikkamagalur and Kodagu are experiencing below normal rains which fall between 20% to 59%. However, since monsoon has just begun its course, the shortfall is expected to be filled up in days to come.
