Monsoon favourable, likely to cover deficiency soon, says IMD
NEWDELHI: The first 45 days of the four-month south-west monsoon so far have been favourable for agriculture with 17 states receiving normal rain, 10 receiving excess and two receiving “large excess,” rain, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Wednesday.
Delhi, which had a deficiency of 46% until Tuesday, received rain in many parts of the city on Wednesday morning. Parts of Noida and Greater Noida in the National Capital Region (NCR) also received rain.
“We are expecting moderate category rain on July 17, 18 and 19 which will help cover the deficiency. There is a cyclonic circulation over Uttar Pradesh and the monsoon trough is also likely to bring rains over the city,” said Kuldeep Shrivastava, head of the IMD’S Regional Weather Forecasting Centre.
Only J&K and Ladakh are in the “large deficient” category. Apart from Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, west Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram, Kerala and Dadra and Nagar Haveli are also raindeficient. The rain deficiency in northwest India will be covered soon, according to IMD scientists. “As of now, there is a slight deficiency in northwest India which is likely to be covered. Rest of India has got very good rains. Rains will further improve in
August and September,” said DS Pai, senior scientist at IMD, Pune.
Monsoon rains this year were marked by floods and extremely heavy (over 20 cm rain) in Assam, Bihar and eastern UP, landslides in Arunachal Pradesh and record rainfall in Saurashtra. A cool El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral phase is prevailing, Pai said. El Nino is a climate pattern characterised by high sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean which are neutral now. El Nino years in India are linked to below-normal monsoon rains and higher than normal frequency of heat waves.
“Except for six subdivisions, the distribution of monsoon rains have been very good this year,” said M Mohapatra, director general, IMD. Under the influence of a strong lower level wind convergence along the west coast and an east-west shear zone, widespread and very heavy rains are likely in Konkan and Goa, Madhya Maharashtra and Gujarat during the next five days, IMD said in its bulletin. “We are seeing a high convergence of strong westerly and southwesterly winds from the Arabian sea. It happened between July 2 -4, from July 5 -7 and we are seeing the same pattern so the west coast and Gujarat have got very good rains...another feature of this monsoon is the oscillation of the trough to the north and sometimes to the south of its normal position which gave us good rains in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Marathwada, Rayalaseema and Telangana,” said RK Jenamani, senior scientist at the national weather forecasting centre.