The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has reported that the monsoon, which has not advanced since June 11, remains weak and may take another 3-4 days to progress. The northern limit of the monsoon continues to pass through Navsari, Jalgaon, Amravati, Chandrapur, Bijapur, Sukma, Malkangiri, Vizianagaram, and Islampur.
According to the IMD’s Friday bulletin, conditions are favourable for the southwest monsoon to advance into 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 in the next four to five days. The bulletin also predicts heavy to very heavy rainfall with isolated extremely heavy rain over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, and Northeast India during the same period.
However, the IMD has warned that heatwave to severe heatwave conditions are likely to continue over northern parts of India for another four to five days. Mahesh Palawat, vice president, climate and meteorologist at Skymet Weather, stated, “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.”
On Thursday, the Safdarjung Observatory, the city’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.
Severe heatwave 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 heatwave conditions over western parts of Gangetic West Bengal and Bihar till June 15. Moreover, heatwave 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.
In one of the longest and most severe summers, 14 of 36 subdivisions in the country have recorded over 15 heatwave days between March 1 to June 9, data compiled by the IMD has shown. 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.
