For the second consecutive year, India recorded above-normal monsoon rainfall, with an 8 % surplus over the long-period average. The rains began early Kerala saw onset on May 24, the earliest since 2009 and swept across the country by late June. September downpours, especially, pushed many regions into “excess rain” territory.

Yet the monsoon’s generosity came with cost. Over 1.5 lakh people were displaced, and more than 200 lives lost in floods, landslides and related calamities. Mountainous states such as Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir bore the brunt, with flash floods and slope failures common. In Punjab, heavy rainfall contributed to one of the worst floods in decades, submerging villages and damaging tens of thousands of hectares of crops. Meanwhile, regions in the east and northeast saw deficits the monsoon remained uneven, even in its strength.

The pattern underscores a worrying shift: monsoons that are more intense, less predictable, and more damaging even when they are abundant. Beyond statistics, the human, agricultural, and infrastructural tolls demand urgent climate-resilient planning.