India’s Monsoon Change: Why Rajasthan is Flooded While Meghalaya Runs Dry?

KAKALI DAS

The Indian monsoon has always been dramatic. But the year 2025has gone completely off-script.

Rajasthan, known for sand dunes, scorching heat, and parched fields, is drenched. Villages in the Thar Desert are watching rainwater pool in places where camels usually roam.

At the same time, Meghalaya, home to Cherrapunji and Mawsynram, the two wettest places on Earth, is waiting for clouds that never arrive. Assam’s mighty rivers are running low. Farmers in the northeast look to the skies in vain, while parts of central India drown in floodwaters.

This unusual pattern has raised serious questions – has the Indian monsoon broken? Is this a sign of bad luck, or is it a clear warning from our changing climate?

To understand what is going on, we need to take a closer look at how the monsoon works and why it has gone off track this year. Usually, dry states like Rajasthan get very little rainfall, while the north-eastern states like Meghalaya, Assam, and Arunachal Pradesh receive heavy downpours during the season.

But this year, the pattern has flipped. Rajasthan has received around 92% more rain than normal, while Assam and Meghalaya have been hit by a large rainfall shortage. And it is not just these two states – Bihar, West Bengal, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh are all facing deficits.

Meanwhile, central and western parts of India, which are normally not as wet, are receiving much more rain than usual. Madhya Pradesh has 54% surplus rainfall, Jharkhand has 53%, Odisha has 15%, Himachal Pradesh has 5%, and Haryana has 11% above normal. This dramatic difference shows that the monsoon has completely ignored its usual route this year.

In July 2025, during a five-day workshop on “Climate Action and Environmental Leadership” held at the Bajali Block Development Office in Assam, under the aegis of the District Administration and the Mahabahu Climate Forum, participants reported a noticeable decline in local rainfall compared to surrounding areas, resulting in reduced agricultural yields and a range of cascading impacts.

Recognising the significance of this concern, the Mahabahu Climate Forum officially proposed to Bhattadev University, Bajali, that this situation presents an important opportunity for research-driven analysis of local weather patterns and the perceived rainfall deficiency in the region. Such a study, they suggested, would be instrumental in addressing the challenges posed by these localized effects of climate change and the broader shifts in precipitation patterns observed across the area.

The big question is – why is this happening? And is there a deeper pattern we should be worried about? Scientists point to several reasons behind this strange shift. One of the main reasons is something called enhanced moisture capacity. Warmer air can hold more water vapour, and this extra moisture can cause intense and sudden downpours in some places.

This is explained by what scientists call the Clausius-ClapeyronEffect – every 1°C rise in temperature increases the atmosphere’s ability to hold water vapour by about 7%.

With climate change raising global temperatures, the air over India can now hold more moisture than before. This means when it does rain, the showers are more intense and often happen over smaller, concentrated areas rather than spreading evenly across the country.

Central India, which heats up more due to being far from the sea, is now experiencing fewer but heavier rain events. This explains why pockets of western and central India are getting flooded while parts of the northeast remain dry.

Another important factor this year is the southward shift of the monsoon trough. The monsoon trough is like a path that guides moisture-laden winds coming from the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal. Normally, it is positioned in such a way that it benefits the northeast and eastern parts of India.

But this year, it has shifted south by almost 200 kilometres. This shift has brought central and western India directly in the path of these moisture-heavy winds, giving states like Rajasthan and Gujarat much more rain than normal. Rajasthan, for example, has had almost double the usual rainfall, and Gujarat has had 35% more than normal.

Weather experts also look at the role of large oceanic patterns like ENSO (El Niño–Southern Oscillation) and IOD (Indian Ocean Dipole). ENSO includes both El Niño and La Niña phases, which can strongly affect the Indian monsoon. But this year, ENSO is in a neutral phase – meaning neither El Niño nor La Niña is dominating. Normally, this should mean a fairly regular monsoon, but other factors are interfering.

The Indian Ocean Dipole is another ocean phenomenon that affects rainfall. It refers to the temperature difference between the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. A positive IOD usually strengthens the monsoon, while a negative IOD weakens it. This year began with a weak positive IOD, which helped some parts of India get strong rains. But scientists expect it to turn negative by September, which could mean reduced rainfall later in the season.

The northeast’s dry spell Is not just a one-off problem this year. In fact, Assam, Meghalaya, and Tripura have faced below-normal rainfall for the last five consecutive years. This is worrying because it points to a longer-term trend. The reasons are both climate-related and local.

In the Bay of Bengal, changes in the way clouds form and move have reduced the amount of moisture reaching the northeast. On top of that, human activities like deforestation, urban expansion, and changes in land use have disturbed the local weather systems that used to bring steady rain to the region.

Another key reason behind these shifts is the weakening of the land-sea thermal contrast. The Indian monsoon works because of the temperature difference between the hot landmass and the cooler surrounding oceans. In summer, the land heats up faster, creating a low-pressure zone that pulls in moist winds from the sea.

But recent years have seen the land heating pattern change. Summer land temperatures are no longer rising much faster than ocean temperatures, reducing the pressure difference that drives the monsoon winds. This is especially affecting the flow of moisture towards the northeast.

All of these factors together – climate change, shifting monsoon paths, ocean temperature changes, and local environmental damage, are altering the behaviour of the monsoon. And the effects of these changes are already visible in agriculture, the economy, and daily life.

One of the most immediate impacts is on farming. Farmers in states like Bihar, where rainfall is down by over 40%, have had to delay planting their kharif crops. In places like Rajasthan, on the other hand, sudden floods have damaged crops and rural livelihoods. Food production will likely be hit, which could lead to higher prices and strain on the economy.

It Is not just farming that suffers. Heavy rains in Odisha and Jharkhand have flooded coal and mineral mining areas, forcing operations to stop. This has already affected India’s power output and industrial production. In fact, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) has fallen to a 10-month low recently, partly due to these disruptions.

Cities are also feeling the pressure. Intense, short bursts of rain are overwhelming drainage systems and causing urban flooding in many parts of India.

On the other hand, the northeast’s water shortage is creating stress on both rural and urban water supplies. When you combine water scarcity in one region with flood damage in another, it points to a larger water crisis that the country will need to manage carefully.

This strange mix of floods and droughts happening at the same time is a clear sign that India’s weather is becoming more unpredictable. The monsoon has always been the heartbeat of India’s climate and economy, but now that heartbeat is irregular.

While weather patterns can vary from year to year, the repeated deficits in the northeast and the increasing frequency of extreme rainfall in other areas suggest that we are dealing with a deeper, climate-driven change.

The challenge now is to adapt and prepare. If rainfall is no longer predictable, farming schedules, water storage plans, and disaster management systems will all need to be rethought.

This will require better forecasting, stronger infrastructure to handle both floods and droughts, and policies that protect forests and natural water systems. It will also mean recognising that climate change is not a distant problem, it is here, affecting the monsoon we depend on.

What is happening in 2025 is not just a weather oddity. It is part of a pattern of increasing extremes, and if we do not act now, the costs, in terms of food, water, livelihoods, and lives, will only grow.

The monsoon is changing, and India will have to change with it. The sooner we accept that and start preparing for a future where Rajasthan might flood while Meghalaya runs dry, the better our chances of avoiding disaster.

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