Southwest monsoon seasonal rainfall over India to be above normal in 2025: IMD

The southwest monsoon seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole during 2025 is most likely to be above normal (>104% of the Long Period Average), informed the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday.

As per IMD, the forecast based on both dynamical and statistical models suggests that quantitatively, the monsoon seasonal rainfall is likely to be 105% of the Long Period Average (LPA) with a model error of ± 5%.

“The five category probability forecasts for the Seasonal (June to September) rainfall over the country as a whole are given below, which suggests that there is a strong probability (59%) of southwest monsoon seasonal rainfall likely to be in the above normal category or higher (>104% of LPA),” said IMD in its long-range forecast for southwest monsoon.

The IMD further informed that the forecast for the southwest monsoon season rainfall during 2025 has been prepared based on the April initial conditions of a group of coupled climate models which have higher prediction skill over the Indian monsoon region.

Region-Wise Forecast

The spatial distribution suggests that above-normal seasonal rainfall is very likely over most parts of the country except some areas over Northwest India, Northeast India, and South Peninsular India, where below-normal rainfall is likely.

Since 2003, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been issuing the operational long-range forecast (LRF) for the southwest monsoon seasonal (June- September) rainfall averaged over the country as a whole in two stages. 

The first stage forecast is issued in April and the second stage or updated forecast is issued by the end of May.

In 2021, IMD implemented a new strategy for issuing monthly and seasonal operational forecasts for the southwest monsoon rainfall over the country by modifying the existing two-stage forecasting strategy.  The new strategy uses both dynamic and statistical forecasting systems.