Rains retreat to be delayed further

Anew low pressure over the Bay of Bengal and a western disturbance are likely to further delay the withdrawal of the southwest monsoon this year and cause rainfall over north India over the weekend. The rains were supposed to retreat from September 1.

The revised forecast said the monsoon withdrawal would start from September 10-12. Now, it seems this will take longer.

“The withdrawal will not start this week,” India Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General K J Ramesh said.

The rains usually start withdrawing from early September from western Rajasthan. The process is usually complete by end-October, signaling the end of the fourmonth season that starts in June. For the past few years, withdrawal has been delayed.

The delay might aide planting of rabi crops, but if the showers are more than expected they might cause damage to the standing kharif harvest, particularly crops sown late.

A likely western disturbance over north India during the weekend might cause heavy to very heavy showers in a few places, including New Delhi.

“Heavy to very heavy rain is likely over north India from 23 September… All states must be warned for flooding,” Jatin Singh, chief executive officer of private weather forecasting agency Skymet, tweeted.

Till September 17, the southwest monsoon has been 9 per cent below normal with rains deficient in 12 of the 36 meteorological sub-divisions. These include west Rajasthan, Saurashtra, Gujarat, north interior Karnataka, Rayalseema, Bihar, Jharkhand, and the entire Northeast India.

In many parts, the deficit is largely on account of low rainfall in the first half of the monsoon, but in others the conditions are staring at a drought.

The data also showed that out of the 662 districts, the monsoon was normal in 62 per cent of them between June 1 and September 16. In the rest, it was deficient.

Encouraged by the late withdrawal of monsoon, sowing of kharif crops has also picked up pace and crossed last year’s level — almost 1 per cent more than the area sown in 2017.

Water levels in the 91 major reservoirs across the country were also at a comfortable 131 per cent more than last year and 114 per cent of its 10-year average. This should also augur well for the rabi sowing season.