Weather: Monsoon revives, and advances toward North India
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: After a delay of nearly two weeks, threatening agriculture and the economy across India, the monsoon rains revived on Thursday and were reported advancing towards North India to cover central parts of the South Asian country in the next few days, the weatherman said.
India’s financial capital, Mumbai, received widespread rains in the last two days, bringing down temperatures and humidity significantly, giving indications of a monsoon revival.
Early rains in some places brought the much-needed relief from the intense heatwave, which claimed several lives and left many others sick, in the grain-growing northern plains, the media reported.
Summer rains, critical for economic growth in Asia’s third-largest economy, usually begin in the south around June 1 before spreading nationwide by July 8. It allows farmers to plant crops such as rice, cotton, soybeans, and sugarcane.
“Monsoon is reviving. It was stuck after covering most of Maharashtra, but by the weekend, it will enter Madhya Pradesh,” the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
“Western and southern regions will receive heavy rains from the next week. Central parts would also start getting rains.”
The monsoon, which hit Kerala on time, arrived nearly two days ahead of schedule in Maharashtra, but its progress in the central and eastern states of the country got delayed for nearly a week.
The monsoon is the Indian economy’s lifeline as it brings nearly 70 percent of the rains that the country needs to water farms and refill reservoirs and aquifers.
In the absence of irrigation, nearly half the farmland in the world’s second-biggest producer of rice, wheat, and sugar depends on the annual rains that usually run from June to September.
The rains are expected to advance swiftly from next week and bring down temperatures in northern India.
The heatwave in northern states will ease by the weekend, officials said.
The maximum temperature in India’s northern states ranges between 42 degrees Celsius and 46 degrees C (108 degrees Fahrenheit to 115 degrees F) this week, which is nearly 3 degrees C to 5 degrees C above normal, the IMD data showed.
Overall, India has received 18 percent less rainfall than normal since the season began on June 1, the IMD said.
