MUMBAI (Reuters) – India is likely to receive normal monsoon rains in 2023, the state-run weather office said on Tuesday, the fifth straight year of normal or above normal summer rains that spur farm and overall economic growth in Asia’s third-biggest economy.
The rains, which usually lash the southern tip of Kerala state around June 1 and retreat by September, are expected to total 96% of the long-term average this year, M. Ravichandran, secretary at the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES), told a news conference.
The India Meteorological Department defines average, or normal, rainfall as ranging between 96% and 104% of a 50-year average of 87 cm (35 inches) for the four-month season.
(Reporting by by Neha Arora and Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
