Pune has experienced 30 consecutive days of single-digit rainfall, contributing to a significant rainfall deficit across Maharashtra. Certain regions within the state are reporting deficits as high as 45%. This prolonged dry spell raises concerns about water supply and agricultural impacts in the area.
Pune: A sharp reversal in rainfall has marked this year’s monsoon season in Pune, with the city going from recording its wettest July in 119 years to one of its driest Augusts in a decade, all within 30 days. Pune recorded 11 double-digit rainfall days in August of 2024, eight in Aug 2020 and six in Aug 2022. In contrast, there has been just one such day in Aug 2026.
“Pune’s Shivajinagar observatory recorded only 84.5mm rainfall in August, making it the third-driest Aug in the last decade,” said an expert from the ‘Vagaries of Weather’ blog, citing IMD data. “The month has also seen a prolonged absence of substantial rain, with the city now completing 30 consecutive days without rain in the double digits (10mm or more),” the expert said. But despite the exceptionally dry August, Pune’s cumulative rainfall for the June-August period remains above normal, IMD scientist SD Sanap said. The entire region (Maharashtra) has seen deficient rainfall,” Sanap said. He said weather systems that developed during the month largely formed over the head of the Bay of Bengal and subsequently moved northwest.
He attributed the August deficit to the absence of favourable meteorological conditions over Maharashtra . “So it was not just in Pune. “When systems form over the head of Bay of Bengal and move northwest, they mainly bring rain to Jharkhand, north Chhattisgarh and east Madhya Pradesh. We saw the same pattern this August. So systems capable of bringing significant rainfall to Pune and other parts of Maharashtra did not develop during the month. ” Scarcity of good August rain is evident in decade-long IMD data.