Panaji: Goa has experienced one of its driest starts to the southwest monsoon in nearly two decades, with rainfall during the first 20 days of June among the lowest since 2010, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Data from June 1 to June 20 reveals that Goa received only 166mm of rainfall against the normal 573mm, resulting in a 71% deficit. This makes 2026, along with 2023, the driest start to June in the last 17 years.
In 2023, the state had recorded 165mm of rainfall by June 20, also a 71% deficit. However, heavy rainfall during the last 10 days of that month reduced the deficit to 30% by June-end, improving the departure by 40 percentage points.
Although the southwest monsoon arrived in Goa on June 5 this year, compared to June 11 in 2023, rainfall activity has remained weak throughout the first three weeks of June, placing the state in the “Large Deficient” category.
“The weak monsoon rainfall activity over Goa has been more pronounced in 2026,” said MR Ramesh Kumar, meteorologist and retired chief scientist at the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO). He attributed the deficit to a combination of factors, including weak cross-equatorial winds, a weak low-level jet stream, a weak tropical easterly jet stream, a developing El Nino in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, and a neutral Indian Ocean dipole.
Despite the poor start, historical IMD data indicates that rainfall patterns in Goa can change significantly during the final days of June. In 2022, the state recorded a 47% rainfall deficit up to June 20 but ended the month with a deficit of just 9% after intense rainfall in the last week, bringing it back into the “Normal” category. A similar recovery was observed in 2010, when the deficit improved from 32% on June 20 to 10% by the end of the month.
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About the Author: Nida Sayed is the principal correspondent at the Times of India. She writes on Transport, Oceanography, Agriculture and Meteorology among other subjects. She has been working for TOI since 2014.
