Rainfall variability under climate change is a crucial global issue that may have an extensive and direct impact on society and the environment and contributes to severe hazards like drought and flooding. The purpose of this study is to access the historical and model projection of the change in rainfall variability at various temporal scales over five states of South India; Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Kerala. The assessment shows the spatial and temporal rainfall variability of southern India which has always been in attention due to regional issues such as water scarcity, socio-economic development, and natural disasters (flood & droughts). The major part of south India receives its annual rainfall from the influence of the southwestern monsoon that falls between June and September. In order to analyze rainfall variability, interquartile range (IQR) and precipitation concentration index (PCI) were evaluated in rainfall data. Moreover, drought characteristics were estimated using the standardization precipitation index (SPI), a meteorological drought indicator. Annual rainfall variability and trend were estimated using Mann-Kendall and Sen's slope. According to analysis, most of the southern states exhibit a monotonic trend of rainfall. Furthermore, SPI was used to assess and prioritize the drought mitigation measures in the study area.
