India has just recorded its driest June in more than a century, and July offers little immediate relief. With a potentially “super” El Niño strengthening over the equatorial Pacific the 2026 season is starting on the back foot. Yet forecasters and climate scientists are watching one wildcard that has bailed out the monsoon before: the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).

“The monsoon‘s behaviour is being shaped by larger climate drivers such as El Niño and the Indian Ocean Dipole,” K Venkatramana, Fellow and Area Convener at the Center for Climate Modelling in TERI’s Earth Science and Climate Change Division to Financial Express online.

He expects rainfall to be broadly normal across much of India, though some regions will stay in deficit. “A positive IOD… usually helps pull in more moisture and strengthens monsoon rainfall over India, often offsetting the weakening effect of El Niño,” he said.

“IOD will remain essentially neutral for the next two months; even slight positive values (0.1–0.5) are unlikely to significantly affect monsoon rainfall. Overall, its influence is expected to be neutral,” he added.

The reverse also holds, “A negative IOD typically weakens monsoon circulation and can result in below-normal rainfall, and if it occurs alongside El Niño, it can worsen drought-like conditions,” Venkatramana clarified.

Venkatramana pegged India’s cumulative deficit this year at about 10%, with the south near normal but the north sharply drier, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, he said, are running close to between 20-60% shortfall.

He cautioned that a clearer picture will only emerge over the coming weeks, and that drought calls remain premature at this stage.

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Meanwhile, the CCSR/IRI (Center for Climate Systems Research/ International Research Institute for Climate and Society) seasonal forecast for July–September 2026 indicates a widespread and powerful below-normal precipitation signal across most of India. Central India, the western coast (Maharashtra, Gujarat), and large parts of the peninsula through the south show dark-brown shading, implying a 60–70% (or higher) probability of below-normal rainfall — a pronounced and spatially extensive drought signal for the core monsoon season.

How will Indian Ocean Dipole impact monsoons?

A positive IOD with warmer waters in the western Indian Ocean, cooler in the east pulls more moisture toward the subcontinent and can blunt El Niño’s drying effect.

A negative IOD does the opposite, and layered on top of El Niño it can tip an already-weak season toward drought. The IMD currently reads the IOD as neutral, but expects positive conditions to develop later in the season which is precisely where the hope lies: not in saving June and July, but in salvaging the second half of the monsoon.

Understanding Indian Ocean Dipole precedent

In 1997, India faced an El Niño every bit as fierce as this year’s, yet the season closed about 2% above normal, widely credited to a strong positive IOD that dragged extra moisture in.

The cautionary counter-case is 2015-16, the last super El Niño, when no such offset materialised – the IMD’s initial forecast of 93% of the long-period average was revised down to 88%, and the country ultimately logged 86% amid widespread drought. This year sits between those two outcomes, and the IOD is the swing factor.

What is the Indian Ocean Dipole?

The IOD is a climate pattern in the Indian Ocean. In its positive phase, warm water pools in the west while cold deep water rises to the surface in the east; the negative phase reverses that, and each phase pushes the monsoon in opposite directions.

The July outlook

The IMD expects July rainfall below 94% of the long-period average — the LPA for the month is 280.4 mm on the 1971-2020 baseline — with below-normal rain likely across large parts of central, western and northern India. The exceptions: northwest India, east-central India and the eastern peninsula could see normal to above-normal rain, and the northeast is expected to stay wetter than most of the country. It follows a June that ended 39% below normal — the fifth-driest since 1901.

Why it matters for kharif and the economy

The kharif crop — rice, maize, cotton, pulses — is sown on the monsoon’s timing and depth, and the slow start is already showing: government data puts kharif sowing roughly 23% behind the same point last year, held back by inadequate soil moisture. A weak or lopsided monsoon ripples well beyond the field, pressuring farm output, rural incomes, food prices and inflation, and softening demand for tractors, seeds, fertiliser and other rural goods — while raising the odds of higher government spending on support measures.