india

Updated: Jul 01, 2019 05:56 IST

The monsoon is likely to advance into remaining parts of central India, some areas of the country’s west and parts of eastern Rajasthan next week, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Sunday.

It has progressed slowly this season and delayed sowing of crops like rice. The monsoon brings around 70% of India’s rainfall annually. It is crucial to the country’s farm sector since over half of India’s arable land is rain-fed.

The IMD said a low-pressure area was formed over the northeast Bay of Bengal on Sunday. It is likely to develop into a depression and make conditions favourable for rainfall and the monsoon advancement.

There was a 34% deficiency in monsoon rainfall over the long period average as of June 29. The monsoon advancement had slowed down from June 25. It was due to a lack of a weather system that could take the monsoon current ahead. In association with the depression over the Bay of Bengal, there will be widespread rainfall over Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Vidarbha, and East Madhya Pradesh in the next two to three days, the IMD said. The monsoon has reached these places.

Temperatures in Delhi and other parts of the National Capital Region (NCR) were likely to reduce marginally due to the weather system. There will be cloudy skies and some rain in the NCR in the next few days as well.

IMD officials said it was too early to say when the monsoon will hit Delhi, Haryana, and Punjab. The normal date for monsoon arrival in Delhi is June 29.

Private met forecaster, Skymet Weather, has said the monsoon is likely to hit Delhi around or after July 7. This is because the low-pressure area that would turn into a depression will move westwards inland and cause heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in some parts of central and peninsular India.

“The low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal will move inland now and cause very heavy rain over Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, etc,’’ said IMD’s national weather forecasting centre head, K Sathi Devi. “We are expecting monsoon current to also advance with the system between July 1 and 3.”

Devi said it should advance to places which have not been covered yet. “It is difficult to forecast its trajectory immediately,” she said. “Because the wind pattern will change to easterlies, we are expecting a marginal drop in temperature over Delhi and neighbouring areas and an increase in humidity. There will some cloudiness and scattered rain.”

The maximum temperature in Delhi was 42.3 degree Celsius on June 29 and 42.2 on June 30.

The south-west monsoon normally hits Kerala around June 1. It advances northwards, usually in surges, and covers the entire country by around July 15. But this year the monsoon arrived in over Kerala on June 8 and has advanced relatively slowly.

As of June 30, the monsoon is yet to cover Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan. The IMD on Sunday said the monsoon may advance to some parts of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand after July 4. It has warned of heavy – 64.5 mm daily – to extremely heavy – over 204.4 mm per day – in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha, eastern Madhya Pradesh and Telangana between June 30 and July 3. The IMD has issued an alert to the authorities asking them to take action in case of emergencies.