NEW DELHI, June 14: Causing concern, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday that the monsoon has nearly not progressed since June 11.
The northern limit of the monsoon continues to pass through Navsari, Jalgaon, Amravati, Chandrapur, Bijapur, Sukma, Malkangiri, Vizianagaram, and Islampur, the IMD said.
In its bulletin on Friday the weather bureau said the conditions were favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some more parts of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Northwest Bay of Bengal, some parts of Gangetic West Bengal, remaining parts of Sub Himalayan West Bengal and some parts of Bihar during next four to five days.
“Heavy to very heavy rainfall with isolated extremely heavy rain is very likely to continue over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and Northeast India during next 4-5 days,” it said. Heatwave to severe heat wave conditions are likely to continue over northern parts of India for another four to five days, the IMD has warned.
“Monsoon is expected to remain weak for the next 3-4 days. Once it picks up, it may move to West Bengal, Jharkhand etc., but then move over to the Himalayan foothills before making an onset over Delhi, Haryana and neighbouring areas around month end,” said Mahesh Palawat, vice president, climate and meteorologist at Skymet Weather.
“The westerly winds are very strong. They are not letting moist easterly winds penetrate over north-western states. Monsoon onset will not happen here until wind direction changes,” added Palawat.
On Thursday, the Safdarjung Observatory, New Delhi’s official weather station, recorded a maximum temperature of 44.8 degrees Celsius, 4.9 degrees above normal.
The rainfall deficiency since June 1 increased from 1% on Wednesday to 9% on Friday. “There is a 9% deficiency over the country, with 57% rainfall deficiency over northwest India, 30% over east and northeast India, 9% deficiency over central India and 50% excess over Peninsular India,” the IMD said.
According to IMD, severe heat wave conditions are very likely in many or most parts of Uttar Pradesh, in parts of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi till June 18, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand till June 15 and isolated heat wave conditions over western parts of Gangetic West Bengal and Bihar till June 15. Moreover, heat wave conditions are very likely isolated in pockets of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu Division till June 17, northeast Madhya Pradesh till June 16, north Rajasthan, and north Chhattisgarh till June 15.
On Thursday, maximum temperatures in the range of 44-47°C were observed over many parts of Haryana, Chandigarh and Delhi, over some parts of west Jharkhand, southwest Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and north Rajasthan.
Meanwhile, heavy to very heavy rainfall was observed at isolated places in Assam and Meghalaya, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, North Interior Karnataka, Konkan and Goa, Telangana, Marathwada and Bihar. Most parts of the country was experiencing one of the longest summers this year.
(Manas Dasgupta)
