Usually, the monsoon starts withdrawing in the Kashmir Valley in the month of September, which is considered to be a month of low rainfall: as per the rainfall data provided by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), the average rainfall does not exceed 60 mm anywhere in the entire Valley during that month. However, the rainfall in September this year was several times higher, which caught both the government as well as the people by surprise. The intensity of the rainfall in Kashmir presented a sheer contrast to the total rainfall in northwestern India this year which was 79 percent of the 50-year average or long period average (LPA), almost a threshold for declaring a drought. Moreover, it has been a year of low rainfall all over the country, with the total rainfall being just 88 percent of the LPA.