Dry, wet, dry again: India’s ‘mysterious’ monsoon swings threaten crops, power supply

An intensifying El Nino and global warming are driving a shift in India’s monsoon rainfall, creating more erratic weather patterns that threaten to dent agricultural output and strain power grids. This year’s monsoon opened with India’s fifth-driest June on record and rainfall almost 40 per cent below normal levels, followed by a sudden deluge early this month – when about a month’s worth of precipitation was dumped on cities like Mumbai in a single week. Since then, the weather system has...