Southwest monsoon to start retreat journey in couple of weeks

The country as a whole received 729.5 mm of rain from June 1 to September 16 which left a deficit of 124.2 mm compared to the normal average.

Hyderabad: The southwest monsoon arrived later than it was expected this year and it is also likely to set out on its retreat journey earlier than expected.
According to sources in the IMD, the monsoon withdrawal process is likely to commence from the northwest region of the country in less than three weeks’ time. The monsoon started withdrawing from the northwest sometime towards the end of September last year.

The country as a whole received 729.5 mm of rain from June 1 to September 16 which left a deficit of 124.2 mm compared to the normal average.

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Water stock in key 150 reservoirs in the country as on September 06, stood at 111.7 billion cubic meters (BCM) as against 113.4 BCM recorded till August 31, and 150.9 BCM recorded in the corresponding period last year. The current year’s storage is 74% of what it was last year and 86% of the average storage in the last ten years.

Region-wise analysis of the water storage in reservoirs indicates that Southern region has a water storage level of 48%, significantly lower than the previous year’s level of 99%.

The Krishna basin reservoirs right from Almatti in the upper reaches to Nagarjunasagar, joint project of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, the situation is deteriorating. Nagarjunasagar had received only what that was let out from Srisailam project for power generation.

So far as the northern region is concerned it has the lowest storage as per its capacity. In its eight reservoirs under CWC monitoring, the total live storage available was 4.09 BCM, which is 21 per cent of total live storage capacity of these reservoirs.

Storage in the reservoirs in the eastern, western and central regions was 31 per cent, 30 per cent and 31 per cent respectively. The storage levels stand a chance to be improved only in the event of surplus rainfall in the next two weeks of September.

Rainfall in the range of 222 mm in the current month may help fix the deficit.