India's Monsoon Turns Wild: Dry Spells Followed by Deadly Floods

An intensifying El Niño and global warming are driving a shift in India’s monsoon rainfall, creating more erratic weather patterns that threaten crops and strain power grids. This year’s monsoon opened with India’s fifth-driest June on record, with rainfall nearly 40 percent below normal. Then, early this month, a sudden deluge hit. Cities like Mumbai received about a month’s worth of rain in a single week. Since then, the weather system has swung back to dry conditions, leaving farmers and energy planners struggling to adapt. The unpredictable swings—from drought to flood and back—pose a direct risk to agricultural output and electricity supply.