Monsoon to make central, eastward shift by Aug-end

After pounding Kerala and other southern states, the southwest monsoon is now expected to become active over states such as Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, and West Bengal, till August-end, and then over central India.

In its latest weekly update, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the rains would become active over east India and parts of central India due to the influence of a low pressure area likely to formed over the Bay of Bengal.

“The rains have revived over some parts of east India and around August 26, a fresh low pressure area will form over the Bay of Bengal. Though not very strong, it will bring rains over central India and parts of the west coast,” said Mritunjay Mohapatra, additional director general, IMD.

He said in the southern peninsula, rainfall intensity would gradually peter out. The region, according to the IMD’s latest weekly bulletin, has received around 81 per cent excess rainfall during the August 16 to August 22 week. This was due to the deluge in Kerala along with parts of Karnataka.

The revival of rains over eastern and central India over the next few weeks should augur well for the standing kharif crops, which were facing moisture stress due to a prolonged dry spell.

“So far, the monsoon distribution has been good. Else kharif sowing would not have progressed well,” Mohapatra clarified. He said though the overall monsoon deficit between June 1 and August 23 stood at 7 per cent, there is a possibility it might go down further in the next seven days.

Of the 36 meteorological subdivisions, rainfall between June 1 and August 23 has been normal in 25 and deficient in the remaining 11 subdivisions.

Of these, in Bihar, the rainfall this season has been 22 per cent less than normal; Jharkhand has been less than 28 per cent; Karnataka (-21 per cent); Rayalseema (-42 per cent), Assam and Meghalaya (34 per cent); and Saurashtra (-21 per cent).

The IMD in its second-stage forecast had predicted that the August rains would be normal at 94 per cent of the long-period average. The forecast is with a model error of plus and minus 9 per cent. “I cannot say how much the deficit would go down as there is still a week left for the month to end,” Mohapatra added.

Mahesh Palawat, chief meteorologist at Skymet said rains in the coming week to 10 days would be good.