An all-India 'below-normal' monsoon forecast can coexist with regional floods. Explain with reference to Odisha's 2026 monsoon, and suggest reforms in forecasting and early warning.

In 2026, IMD forecast India's June–September rainfall at 90% of the Long Period Average (LPA), which is 'below normal', because El Niño was expected to develop [1]. Yet fresh Bay of Bengal low-pressure systems kept Odisha under heavy-rain alerts and brought floods [2]. There is no contradiction here. A national average hides where and when the rain actually falls.

Why a below-normal national forecast coexists with regional floods

• Spatial averaging: LPA is a country-wide total. Deficits in north-west and central India can cancel out surpluses in the east.
• Weather systems override El Niño locally: El Niño weakens the season as a whole. But Bay of Bengal lows and depressions moving along the monsoon trough still bring heavy rain to Odisha [2].
• Rain in bursts, not the seasonal total: back-to-back spells fall on already-saturated soil, so even moderate rain turns into immediate runoff.
• Terrain: the low-gradient Mahanadi–Brahmani–Baitarani delta drains slowly to the sea, while the southern highlands are prone to landslides. Floods in six districts, including Bhadrak and Jajpur, damaged nearly 42,000 ha of cropland [3].
• Monitoring gaps: the CAG found that many flood-forecasting telemetry stations were non-functional, so real-time data was missing [4].

Reforms in forecasting and early warning

• Impact-based, district-level forecasts: move from "how many mm" to "what it will do" by combining rainfall with soil moisture and river levels.
• Cumulative-rainfall triggers: issue alerts based on multi-day totals, not only the next day's rain.
• Regional sub-seasonal outlooks issued alongside the all-India LPA figure.
• Repair and add telemetry stations, and act on the CAG's findings on dam Emergency Action Plans and flood-plain zoning [4].
• Hazard maps linked to warnings: use OSDMA's Flood Hazard Zonation Atlas [5] and add slope monitoring in the highlands.
• Last-mile delivery: give flood and landslide tasks to the community network that evacuated close to a million people before Cyclone Phailin (2013) [6].

Odisha's 2026 monsoon shows that a national seasonal forecast is a planning signal, not a local risk forecast. District-level, impact-based and cumulative warnings, backed by the Disaster Management Act, 2005 and the Sendai Framework's goal of multi-hazard early warning, can extend Odisha's cyclone-era success into resilience across the whole season.