However, the fate of Kerala, where 39 dams on inter-state rivers together opened their shutters to save the dams resulting in a deluge to downstream areas has not happened here. Fortunately, for Arunachal Pradesh it did not happen since China did not release water from its dams constructed on the Yarlung Tsangpo. However, there is a lurking fear that it may happen as the Siang River (one of the three that meet to form the Brahmaputra downstream) has suffered from dams and other constructions in China upstream.

This is for the fourth year in a row, India’s monsoon season has produced floods in the North West and the North East, while southern parts of the country have suffered from a rainfall deficit except for this year. Rainfall extremes have increased threefold over the last few years and now extend over all of central India – from Gujarat to Odisha.  Considering the total rainfall over the entire monsoon season from June to September, an early monsoon tends to bring bountiful rainfall whereas better-than-average rainfall is rarely seen when they are delayed. A rich vein of long-term data yields great insights but also raises new questions and poses serious challenges to climate models old and new. However, now we do know that rainfall extremes during the monsoon are unrelated to local warming. But the monsoon havoc is far from over. Though southwest monsoon is still active, we can expect the winter monsoons to be more ferocious.