The Indian subcontinent witnessed a severe monsoon drought in the year 2009. India as a whole received 77% of its long period average during summer monsoon season (1 June to 30 September) of 2009, which is the third highest deficient all India monsoon season rainfall year during the period 1901–2009. Therefore, an attempt is made in this paper to study the characteristic features of summer monsoon rainfall of 2009 over the country and to investigate some of the possible causes behind the anomalous behaviour of the monsoon.