940-946Strong, weak and normal Northeast Monsoon Rainfall (NEMR) are defined depending on the strength of the Northeast Monsoon (NEM) rainfall compared to the long period average (LPA) using monthly rainfall data of Peninsular India (PI). Behavior of NEM monthly (October, November and December) rainfall and contribution of monthly rainfall towards NEM seasonal rainfall is examined during extreme (strong and weak) NEMR years. Strength of association between PI monthly and PI NEM seasonal rainfall is computed and the Wilcoxon Mann-Whitney rank sum test is used to evaluate the differences in the rainfall of NEM months between strong and weak NEM years. It is observed that October/November months contribute maximum rainfall to the NEMR and December contributes the least irrespective of the strength of NEMR and that during strong NEMR years rainfall contribution in October – December months is significantly more than the rainfall in the corresponding months during weak NEMR years. Composite analysis shows that rainfall in each of the NEM months is more than the LPA of the corresponding months during strong NEMR years and less than the LPA of the corresponding months during weak NEMR years. Correlation analysis between PI NEMR and PI monthly rainfall shows that November rainfall has the highest linear correlation whereas December rainfall has the least. The percentage contribution of rainfall is largest in October and least in December and the annual variability is highest for November and least for December
