The recovery of the nascent southwest monsoon over Maharashtra is likely to grip Mumbai over the next 48 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said, while clarifying that the rains received by India’s commercial capital on Monday were actually pre-monsoon showers.
The return of the monsoon, which halted last week, was accompanied by favorable conditions for further advance, albeit gradual, along the western coast and inland towards central India, the IMD said. While parts of Maharashtra received light monsoon rains, the country’s overall rainfall deficit on Monday was 43%, IMD data showed.
“The monsoon has seen a slight recovery, especially on the western side. We had predicted the same a few days ago, as it should rebound again around June 22-23. However, the low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal is still missing and should develop only towards the end of the month,” said OP Sreejith, scientist and head of the Climate Monitoring and Forecasting Group at IMD. “We can only expect gradual progress in the coming days until the end of the month, when the situation should eventually intensify,” he added.
Although the recovery on the western side is good news, it can only be described as a short recovery at this stage, said Mahesh Palawat, vice president of private meteorological firm Skymet. He also said that the low pressure area on the eastern side over the Bay of Bengal is still missing and is likely to form only by June 29. “This delays the progress towards UP and Delhi. We may expect it only in the first week of July,” he added. Delhi usually sees the arrival of monsoon around June 27.
The southwest monsoon has advanced further in some other parts of “Central Arabian Sea, Maharashtra, Telangana, remaining parts of Karnataka, some parts of Chhattisgarh and some other parts of Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar on June 22,” the IMD said in its bulletin.
“Conditions are favorable for the southwest monsoon to advance further into the remaining parts of the central Arabian Sea and some other parts of Maharashtra – including Mumbai, remaining parts of Telangana, Odisha and some other parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar during the next 48 hours,” he added. .
On Monday, the northern range of the monsoon was passing through Alibaug, Pune, Nizamabad, Dantewada, Balangir, Sundargarh, Chatra, Gaya and Muzaffarpur.
The IMD had earlier said that the monsoon entered parts of Maharashtra on June 8, four days after it reached Kerala. But most parts of the state received little rain. Lack of localized weather systems over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea and the influence of prevailing El Niño conditions have hampered further progress. Usually, the monsoon reaches Mumbai around June 11.
As of June 22, the country was supposed to record 106 mm of rain according to the long period average (LPA), but has so far received only 60.6 mm. Central India was the most affected, with a deficit of 67%, followed by a deficit of 40% in eastern and northeastern India. The deficit in the south of the Indian Peninsula is 28%, while the deficit in northwest India has decreased by 15% from the Libyan Political Agreement so far.
The IMD expects monsoon rainfall this year to reach 90% of the long-period average, and El Niño conditions are expected to curb rainfall, especially in the second half of the season.
