July Ends With More Active Monsoon

WASHINGTON - Aug 3/05 - SNS -- This year's monsoon was active across India at the end of July, according to the U.S. agricultural attache for the country.

Unprecedented heavy rains fell over most parts of Maharashtra, resulting in severe floods in many areas, including India's largest city of Mumbai and it's surrounding suburbs. In addition to disrupting normal life, floods resulted in around 1,000 deaths and heavy losses to business and property in the state.

Weather subdivisions, which received scanty rains (below 60% of the normal rains) were Gujarat, Saurashtra and Kutch, Rajasthan, Kerala, Arunachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir. Rains were also deficient (20 to 59% below normal) in Tamil Nadu, Assam and Meghalaya, East and West Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi, West and East Madhya Pradesh.

Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chattisgarh, which were experiencing prolonged dry weather conditions, received near normal rains this week, which should aid planting of crops, mostly rice. Gujarat, which was earlier ravaged by floods, remained dry for the third consecutive week, which should aid planting and\or replanting of major crops like peanut and cotton in the state.

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