IMD 2026 Monsoon Warning: 90% Rainfall Forecast
Nina Das
NOAA has confirmed El Niño conditions are present in the tropical Pacific as of June 2026. India’s Meteorological Department followed with a warning. The forecast stands at 90 percent of normal seasonal rainfall. There is a 60 percent probability of outright deficient conditions. For Americans, this is not a distant weather story.
India is one of the world’s largest food producers. When its monsoon fails, global food prices move. Your grocery bill feels it. This article breaks down what the forecast actually says, which crops are at risk, and what to watch over the next 90 days. No hype. Just the verified numbers and the human reactions behind them.
Disclaimer: This article discusses weather forecasts and potential economic impacts. Forecasts are probabilistic and subject to change. Nothing here constitutes investment advice or price guarantees.
El Niño is a natural climate cycle. It is driven by warmer ocean temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific. When those ocean temperatures rise above a key threshold, the atmosphere shifts. Wind patterns change. Rain falls in different places. Some regions get droughts. Others get floods.
The threshold for declaring El Niño is a sea surface temperature rise of 0.5 degrees Celsius above normal. Scientists measure this in a region of the Pacific called the Niño 3.4 zone. As of June 2026, the ocean has crossed that line. The atmosphere has already responded. NOAA and Japan’s Meteorological Agency have both confirmed the event is underway.
What makes this one different is the intensity forecast. NOAA puts a 60 percent chance on this El Niño becoming “very strong.” IMD currently forecasts moderate to strong conditions. Strength is expected to increase from July onward.
The current El Niño probability through the summer months:
| Month | Probability El Niño Conditions Present |
|---|---|
| June 2026 | 82% |
| July–August 2026 | More than 90% |
| December 2026–February 2027 | 96% |
This event is not going away quickly. NOAA’s models show a 96 percent chance that El Niño persists through winter 2026 into early 2027.
India’s monsoon season runs June through September. The entire country depends on it. About 60 percent of India’s farmland has no irrigation. Those farms rely entirely on monsoon rainfall.
The long-period average is 868.6 millimeters over four months. IMD uses data from 1971 to 2020 to calculate this baseline. The updated forecast calls for 90 percent of that total. That puts expected rainfall at roughly 782 millimeters.
Under IMD’s official classification system, 90 percent is already below normal. If rainfall drops to 89 percent or less of the long-period average, it officially becomes a deficient monsoon. That means drought conditions for large parts of the country. The current forecast puts a 60 percent chance of crossing that line.
IMD revised this forecast downward twice already. In April, the projection was 92 percent. By May 29, it was cut to 90 percent. Each revision came as El Niño signals in the Pacific strengthened.
The timing matters. El Niño’s suppressive effect on rainfall intensifies as the season progresses. June and July may look manageable. August and September are when the real risk sits. Those are the months when crops already in the ground need water most.
Not all of India will be hit equally. IMD’s regional breakdown shows where the stress concentrates.
| Region | Rainfall Forecast |
|---|---|
| Central India | Below normal |
| South Peninsular India | Below normal |
| Northwest India | Below normal |
| Monsoon Core Zone (Central/East) | Below normal |
| Northeast India | Near normal (94–106% of LPA) |
The Monsoon Core Zone carries the highest risk. This area covers the major rice, wheat, pulses, and oilseed growing regions. Between 150 and 200 districts across this belt have already been flagged by the Indian government as high-risk. The Marathwada and north Karnataka belt holds the sharpest deficit projections. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and parts of eastern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Jharkhand are all on the priority watch list.
On Twitter, real-time reactions tell a story that raw forecast numbers cannot. A farmer account from Maharashtra posted on June 9: “Still no sign of sowing rain in our taluka. Last year we had 3 inches by now. This year zero. People are getting nervous.”
A commodity trader based in Delhi wrote on June 11: “The market is not pricing in August yet. That is the month that will break something if the forecast holds. Watch tur and urad very closely.”
Another agricultural analyst on X shared this on June 10: “IMD has been behind the curve on this all spring. Private models like Skymet have been colder on rainfall for weeks. The 90 percent number may still be optimistic.”
These are not alarmist posts. They are grounded, specific, and consistent with how farmers and traders talk in El Niño onset years. The concern is real. The panic is not there yet. That could change in August.
India’s kharif season covers the summer crop cycle. Farmers plant now and harvest in the fall. The main crops are rice, pulses, oilseeds, cotton, and soybeans.
Two categories carry the sharpest risk: pulses and oilseeds. Roughly 90 percent of the area planted to both crops is rainfed. No irrigation backup exists. India has been running major national programs to reduce its dependence on imports for both. Seeds for this cycle have already been distributed. A significant rainfall deficit during August would damage yields directly.
India is the world’s largest importer of edible oils. It is also a major player in global pulse markets. When India needs to import more to cover domestic shortfalls, it buys from global markets. American soybean and pulse producers compete in those same markets.
Past performance does not guarantee future price movements. The following is historical context only, not price forecasting or investment advice. In past strong El Niño years, Indian pulse imports have risen, and global edible oil prices have increased over a three- to six-month window. American consumers have seen those price changes show up in cooking oil, dal, and packaged food products.
The Indian government’s multi-ministry task force is already preparing contingency plans. The commodities being reviewed for potential import include palm oil, sunflower oil, tur dal, and urad dal. These are the same categories that spiked in price during the 2015 El Niño.
El Niño does not just steal rain. It also turns up the heat.
While the monsoon debate plays out, India is already baking. Temperatures in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra crossed 45 degrees Celsius in June 2026. IMD has issued above-normal heatwave warnings for Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh. Parts of Maharashtra, Telangana, and Tamil Nadu are also flagged for increased heatwave activity.
El Niño years consistently push temperatures higher across India. Maximum temperatures are expected to remain above normal for most of the country through the monsoon season. Minimum nighttime temperatures are expected to stay elevated as well. That compounds stress on crops and on people.
For India’s power grid, this creates a layered problem. Hydropower output is expected to run roughly 10 percent below normal. Lower reservoir inflows from reduced rainfall cause this shortfall. The grid shifts the burden to thermal power plants. That means more coal and gas. That drives up energy costs. Meanwhile, 1.4 billion people run air conditioning and fans through a hotter-than-normal summer. Demand is surging.
On social media, residents of Vidarbha are posting temperature screenshots daily. One user wrote on June 12: “Fans blowing hot air at midnight. This is not normal for June. El Niño is already here even if the rain has not arrived yet.”
Two things could soften El Niño’s impact. Both are currently uncertain.
The first is the Indian Ocean Dipole, or IOD. This is a separate ocean temperature pattern in the Indian Ocean. A positive IOD brings added moisture toward India. It can partially cancel out El Niño’s drying effect. Japan’s Meteorological Agency has flagged a possibility that a positive IOD could develop around July. IMD’s current assessment calls for neutral IOD conditions. That means no significant offsetting effect is expected.
The second factor is India’s food system resilience. In the 2023 El Niño onset year, national food grain production remained steady. Drought-tolerant crop varieties are more widely planted than they were in 2002 or 2015. Crop management has improved. Government buffer stocks provide some cushion against localized failures.
But officials warn that national totals can mask severe localized damage. A district that loses its harvest does not benefit from a national average. Food price inflation tends to rise in El Niño years even when total production numbers hold steady. Localized shortfalls tighten regional supply. That pushes up costs faster than national buffers can respond.
IMD is not the only forecaster watching this monsoon. Private agencies like Skymet publish their own predictions. In 2026, Skymet has been consistently colder on rainfall than IMD. Their June forecast called for 87 percent of normal, with a higher probability of deficient conditions in August.
The gap between public and private forecasts matters. It tells you that the uncertainty is real. IMD tends to be more conservative. Private forecasters move faster on downside revisions. A reader who watches both gets a clearer picture of the risk range.
The most important window is July through September. El Niño is expected to strengthen during exactly those months. August is the single most critical month for kharif crops. If rainfall falls well below normal in August, the damage to pulses and oilseeds becomes very difficult to offset.
Over the next 90 days, three numbers will tell you whether this warning becomes a crisis: the August rainfall total, the Niño 3.4 temperature anomaly, and the Indian Ocean Dipole reading. Watch those.
IMD has committed to issuing monthly updates as the season progresses. NOAA will continue monitoring Pacific sea surface temperatures. India’s agriculture ministry is expecting revised district-level contingency plans by June 20. The 2026 monsoon season is not a disaster yet. It is a warning that deserves attention. And the warning is getting louder.
