MUMBAI, June 30 (Reuters) – India recorded its driest June in more than a decade and the fifth driest since record-keeping began in 1901, with monsoon rainfall 39.8% below the long-term average, weather department data showed on Tuesday.
The rainfall deficit, caused by the delayed advance of the annual monsoon, has slowed the planting of summer-sown crops such as rice, corn, cotton and soybeans.
It has also kept parts of the northern plains unusually hot, with maximum temperatures exceeding 42 degrees Celsius (107.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in some regions.
India received 99.5 mm of rainfall in June against a normal of 165.3 mm, the weather department data showed, as the monsoon reached the southern state of Kerala three days late and its advance across western farming regions stalled for about two weeks.
The monsoon delivers about 70% of annual rains to replenish crucial water sources in the nearly $4-trillion economy, where almost half of farmland lacks irrigation and about half the population earns its livelihood from farming.
(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by YP Rajesh)
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