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From the Khasi Hills to the valleys of Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, India’s wettest region has just lived through its driest monsoon on record. The shortfall began long before June.
In the hills of Northeast India, rain is less a forecast than a foundation. Village springs are expected to swell by early summer. Terraced and jhum fields are sown on the understanding that the clouds will arrive on time. Streams that carry drinking water down the slopes, small hydro schemes, valley paddy and kitchen gardens all run on the same old arrangement with the sky.
In 2026, that arrangement did not hold. There was no single moment when it broke. The rains simply kept falling short, month after month and state after state, until the region’s records caught up with what hill communities had been feeling since winter.
On October 1, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) confirmed it. East and Northeast India received just 1,017.1 mm of rain between June and September, the lowest seasonal total since IMD’s rainfall series began in 1901.
Almost every state came up short
The shortfall was not confined to one corner. Meghalaya ended the season about 60% below normal, Manipur 45% and Arunachal Pradesh 44%, according to IMD data, up to September 29. Mizoram and Tripura were also below normal, at 19% and 16%.
By IMD’s classification, five northeastern states, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Assam, closed the monsoon in the deficient category. Only Nagaland and Sikkim finished slightly above normal.
Across the region as a whole, the monsoon delivered 74% of its long-period average, the weakest showing of India’s four meteorological regions this year.
A dry spell that started in winter
For much of the Northeast, the monsoon failure was the second half of a long dry year. Between January 1 and February 28, IMD data showed near-total winter shortfalls across the region: Manipur and Tripura were 99% below normal, Meghalaya 91%, Sikkim 84%, Arunachal Pradesh 83%, and Mizoram recorded no rain at all. Nagaland received under 2 mm against a normal of 32.5 mm.
Winter and pre-monsoon showers recharge springs and soften soil before the main sowing season. Their absence meant that when June came, many hill communities were already drawing down what little water they had stored.
June offered little relief. Manipur logged a 71% deficit for the month, Nagaland 56%, and Arunachal Pradesh 44%, according to IMD figures for June and July. Nagaland and Tripura recovered to normal by the end of July, but Meghalaya, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh did not.
The wettest places on Earth ran short
The starkest numbers came from Meghalaya, home to Sohra (Cherrapunji) and Mawsynram. By early July, the state’s deficit already stood at 74%, and Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma was publicly linking rising temperatures, water scarcity and falling rainfall to climate change.
The season closed with Meghalaya at 1,077.1 mm against a normal of 2,695.3 mm. Sohra was 36% below its usual total and Mawsynram 34%. Inland towns fared worse, with Nongstoin 62% short, Jowai 66% and Tura 59%. For Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam, not a single monsoon month reached normal.
A 36% shortfall still leaves Sohra wetter than most of India. But in places where water systems, farm calendars and daily routines are built around extraordinary rainfall, even a partial failure ripples through springs, streams and harvests.
Too little rain, and still floods
A dry season did not mean a safe one. Floods still struck parts of the region in July, when several rivers rose even as local rainfall ran well below normal. Rivers in the Northeast drain vast catchments, so a burst of heavy rain upstream can swamp districts that are themselves short of water, a paradox the region knows well.
The season also ran hot. East and Northeast India recorded a mean September temperature of 27.95°C, 0.74°C above normal and the sixth-warmest September in the region since 1901.
The bigger picture
Nationally, India received 87% of its long-period average rainfall this monsoon, the 13th-lowest season since 1901 and the fourth-lowest since 2001, according to IMD. South India also ran about 24% short. But the Northeast stood out, because it is the one region where a dry year breaks a record set over more than a century.
El Niño loomed over the season. In June, the Food and Agriculture Organization warned that the developing El Niño could weaken India’s monsoon and stress rain-fed crops. Yet the same monsoon delivered a very different year elsewhere: Odisha was the only state to record excess rainfall, its fourth-wettest season since 1901.
There is also the question of what to call it. Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said in September that a situation is generally considered drought only when the rainfall shortfall crosses 20% over the relevant period. Northeast India’s season-long shortfall of 26% sits beyond that line, and in Meghalaya, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh it sits far beyond it.
What comes next
The outlook offers little immediate comfort. IMD expects below-normal rainfall over most of India in October, with above-normal daytime temperatures in many regions. For the Northeast, it has forecast mostly normal maximum temperatures and normal to below-normal minimums.
For the hill farmer waiting on a delayed harvest, the household watching its spring run thin, and the towns that once took rain for granted, the coming months will test how much the region can adapt. The old arrangement with the sky has not vanished. But this year made clear that it can no longer be assumed.
References
https://morungexpress.com/northeast-logs-lowest-southwest-monsoon-rainfall-since-1901-imd
A dry monsoon in India’s rainiest region: Meghalaya exposes Northeast’s 2026 rainfall paradox
Why Assam Experiences Flooding Despite Record Low Monsoon Rainfall
https://odishabytes.com/odisha-records-29-excess-monsoon-rain-4th-highest-since-1901/amp
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