Rainfall likely to revive in central India after in 3-4 days, says IMD
NEW DELHI: After a ‘partial break’ over northwest, central and west India for three to four days, the monsoon rains are likely to gradually revive over central India, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday, adding that the revival over northwest India may take a few more days.
Monsoon entered a ‘break’ or a ‘partial break’ phase thrice this season, mainly between June 29 to July 11. It was very weak in the first two weeks of August, leading to a significant deficit in rains across the country. While it revived over northwest India on August 19, it weakened again from August 24 onwards.
Even though the weather body has said that the partial breaks cannot be compared to complete “break” monsoon conditions that have occurred in the past, the monsoon rain distribution appeared to be extremely skewed this year and is likely to impact agriculture in several parts of the country.
“There have been one or two breaks in monsoon during many years in the past. But this time these are not complete breaks in monsoon over the plains. These partial breaks are a result of weakening of monsoon. The first reason behind this is that very few low-pressure systems have formed over the Bay of Bengal during the monsoon season which could bring abundant rain in its track. The second reason is that the Madden-Julian Oscillation, or MJO location, is unfavourable and is inhibiting convective activity. The crossequatorial flow had also weakened, so we saw a partial break in monsoon rain over northwest India, central India and the west coast. These cannot be compared with break monsoon phases,” said M Mohapatra, director general, IMD.
The MJO location and amplitude strongly modulates the intensity of tropical convection and features like low pressure systems over the north Indian Ocean. MJO is an eastward moving disturbance of clouds, rainfall, winds and pressure that traverses the planet in the tropics and returns to its initial starting point in 30 to 60 days on an average.