The India Meteorological Department expects the southwest monsoon to begin pulling out of Saurashtra and Kutch within days, and Gujarat will close the season with two very different rain tallies. South Gujarat has received more than its full-season average. Kutch, Saurashtra and North Gujarat end short, with Kutch at 57% of normal as of September 20, according to state figures compiled by DeshGujarat.
The season in numbers
Gujarat as a whole stood at 88% of its average seasonal rainfall on September 20. The regional split, as reported by DeshGujarat and Chitralekha:
- South Gujarat: about 114%
- East-central Gujarat: about 89%
- North Gujarat: about 71%
- Saurashtra: about 68%
- Kutch: about 57%
Those numbers look far better than they did a week earlier. On September 13 Kutch had logged under 30% of normal and the state average was near 76%. One mid-September spell nearly doubled Kutch’s total. Gujarat Samachar reported that the remaining shortfall sits mostly in Devbhumi Dwarka, Porbandar, Jamnagar and Kutch.
The south had the opposite problem. Between June 1 and September 18, authorities moved 85,456 people to safety across the state, and three southern districts account for most of them: Navsari (29,198), Valsad (22,214) and Surat (17,992), Chitralekha reported.
Where the water stands
Reservoir levels tell the more useful story for the coming dry months. The Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada was about 96% full, while the state’s other 206 reservoirs held about 70% of capacity combined. That average hides a long tail: 30 dams were full, but 73 held less than a quarter of their capacity, according to Chitralekha’s summary of the state figures.
For towns and villages in Saurashtra and Kutch, that gap means another year of leaning on Narmada water piped and canalled across the peninsula, rather than on local dams. A near-full Sardar Sarovar makes that possible. It also means local reservoirs that failed to fill will not recharge wells around them, which hurts farmers who irrigate a rabi crop from groundwater.
What it means for farmers and residents
Kharif crops in Saurashtra, groundnut and cotton above all, got most of their September rain in a single late spell. How much yield that rain saved will show up at harvest and in procurement numbers over the next two months. Rabi sowing of wheat, cumin and gram in the deficit districts will depend on canal releases and on how far water tables have fallen.
Outlook
The monsoon withdrew from parts of west Rajasthan on September 19, two days after its normal date, IMD said. It flagged conditions for further withdrawal over Saurashtra and Kutch over the following three to four days. DeshGujarat’s summary of the IMD forecast expects dry weather over much of Saurashtra and Kutch after September 23, with isolated showers possible in north, central and south Gujarat until about September 27.
The figure to watch now is reservoir storage in Saurashtra’s dams through winter, and whether the state schedules extra Narmada releases for the deficit districts.
Sources: DeshGujarat, Chitralekha, Gujarat Samachar, Metro Vaartha (IMD)
This report was compiled and written with AI assistance from publicly reported sources, and reviewed for accuracy.