How El Niño and climate change are reshaping India's monsoon

After a weak start to the season, the southwest monsoon has regained strength across large parts of India, bringing widespread rainfall to central, western and parts of southern India.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the revival has been driven by a depression, a low-pressure weather system with organised winds and rain, over south Jharkhand and adjoining north Odisha, along with a well-marked low-pressure area over the northwest Bay of Bengal. These systems pull moisture from the Bay of Bengal deep into the Indian mainland, leading to widespread rainfall and strengthening the monsoon.

The IMD says such low-pressure systems are among the key drivers of active monsoon conditions during July and August, often determining where and how intensely it rains.


The recovery follows one of India's driest Junes since 1901, with rainfall picking up sharply during the first week of July as multiple weather systems became active.

Why El Niño is only one part of India's monsoon story

While the recent rainfall has eased concerns over the delayed monsoon, weather experts say India's rainfall is influenced by several climate systems, not El Niño alone.

The IMD says the monsoon is shaped by the interaction of El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which refers to warming or cooling of sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean; the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), which measures temperature differences across the Indian Ocean; and the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO), a moving band of clouds and rainfall that travels around the tropics every 30-60 days. Together, these systems influence when the monsoon strengthens, weakens or shifts across the country.

According to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), El Niño remains a naturally occurring climate phenomenon, and there is no conclusive evidence that climate change is making El Niño events more frequent or stronger.

As the atmosphere and oceans warm, they retain more heat and moisture, increasing the chances of more intense heatwaves, droughts and extreme rainfall during El Niño years.

The WMO expects El Niño to strengthen between July and September 2026, while the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has forecast a 63% chance that warming in the central Pacific will exceed 2°C by late 2026, raising the risk of weather extremes globally.

Why climate change is making India's rainfall more erratic

Climate change is not simply changing how much rain India receives, it is increasingly changing how that rain falls.

According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences' Assessment of Climate Change over the Indian Region, heavy rainfall events over central India have become significantly more frequent over the past few decades, even as moderate rainfall has declined.

The report estimates that the number of days receiving more than 150 mm of rainfall increased by nearly 75% between 1950 and 2015, indicating a shift towards shorter but much heavier downpours.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)—the United Nations' scientific body that assesses climate change, says a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, intensifying the global water cycle and making extreme rainfall events more likely.

For India, this means longer dry spells are increasingly interrupted by brief periods of very heavy rain, making agriculture, flood management and water planning more difficult.

What this means for India's future monsoon

The early weeks of the 2026 monsoon have shown how quickly weather conditions can change, from a severe rainfall deficit in June to widespread rain within days.

While climate drivers such as ENSO, the IOD and the MJO will continue to shape the monsoon, scientists say these natural weather cycles are now operating in a warmer climate, making rainfall more variable and extreme.

The Ministry of Earth Sciences and the IPCC say adapting to this changing pattern will require more climate-resilient farming, better water storage, stronger flood management systems and infrastructure that can withstand increasingly frequent weather extremes.