The monsoon has long been seen as the most destructive season for Indian agriculture, with heavy rains and floods between June and September damaging crops across large areas. However, an analysis of data from 2022 to early April 2026 suggests a shift in both the timing and scale of risks to farming.
Alongside the monsoon, the pre-monsoon season is now emerging as a new period of high risk to crops, according to the analysis based on India’s Interactive Atlas on Weather Disasters.
Unseasonal rains and hailstorms during the pre-monsoon period are increasingly damaging crops at a time once considered relatively safe for farming.
In three of the past four years — 2022, 2024 and 2025 — a significant cropped area was affected by extreme weather events, particularly hailstorms, during the pre-monsoon season.
The trend appears to be continuing in 2026. In just the first 38 days of the pre-monsoon period this year (March 1 to April 7), unseasonal rains and hail were reported on 29 days across at least 24 states.
At least 627,000 hectares of cropped area have been affected across 13 states, including Uttar Pradesh (347,366.43 ha), Maharashtra (204,704 ha) and Bihar (45,000 ha). These figures are likely to be underestimates, as data from 11 other affected states — including eastern states such as West Bengal — is not included.
In total, more than 620,000 hectares have been affected in just over a month, making this the second-highest pre-monsoon crop loss since 2023, when around 636,000 hectares were affected over the entire season.
March 2026 alone recorded at least 195,00 hectares of crop damage — the highest in five years. By comparison, March 2023 saw about 120,000 hectares affected.
Similarly, in just the first week of April, more than 426,000 hectares of cropped area were affected, according to estimates available until April 7, 2026.
Hardoi district in Uttar Pradesh alone accounted for over 80 per cent of this damage. On April 5, around 30 millimetres of rainfall along with hailstorms caused extensive losses to standing wheat crops across approximately 343,069 hectares in the district, according to preliminary data from the Agriculture Department cited in media reports.
The timing of these events is critical. March and April mark the harvest period for rabi crops such as wheat, mustard and pulses.
Extreme weather is now clustering within short periods and striking just before harvest, leaving farmers with little chance to recover losses. Unlike earlier in the season, crops damaged at this stage cannot be replanted, resulting in a complete loss of income.
Even brief spells of rain or hail can destroy standing crops ready for harvest. In many cases, moisture at this stage also reduces grain quality, affecting market prices.
Crop-wise data shows that the impact is particularly severe on rabi crops ready for harvest. Across states such as Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana, wheat, mustard, gram and pulses have been widely affected.
Wheat, the main rabi crop, has been among the hardest hit. It had already faced stress due to a warmer winter, especially in February, a crucial period for grain development.
Alongside cereals, crops such as potato, onion and garlic in states including Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra have also suffered damage, adding to the economic burden on farmers.
The geography of crop loss is also changing. Earlier, such damage during this period was largely confined to north-western states such as Punjab, Haryana and parts of Uttar Pradesh. In 2026, however, the impact has spread much wider. Maharashtra has emerged as a major hotspot, with more than 120,000 hectares affected in March alone.
Losses have been recorded across all regions — central India, the east and north-east, the north-west and the southern peninsula.
Eastern states such as Bihar and southern states including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, which previously saw little or no damage during this period, have also reported significant losses this year.
This widening spread suggests that unseasonal rains and hailstorms are now affecting a much larger part of the country.
This shift is worrying. The data indicates that March and early April are becoming high-risk months for farmers. With the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecasting a hotter and wetter April, pre-monsoon losses could be the highest in five years.
As risks extend across more months and regions, farmers may now face two high-risk seasons in a year — the pre-monsoon and the monsoon — instead of one.
The changes also make agricultural planning based on past seasonal patterns increasingly unreliable, with potential long-term implications for food security and farmer incomes. Experts say the changing seasonality of crop risks needs to be recognised, alongside timely support and improved data systems to protect farmers in a changing climate.
According to the IMD, the unseasonal rains and hailstorms in March and April 2026 have been driven by strong and active western disturbances bringing cold air into the plains.
This cold air has interacted with early summer heat over India, creating conditions for intense thunderstorms and hail. At the same time, additional moisture from the Arabian Sea and unstable atmospheric conditions have made these weather systems more widespread and severe.