Monsoon waits for fresh push, mercury to rise

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 26

While the southwest monsoon awaits a fresh pulse for a further push towards the Indian mainland, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) today said conditions are becoming favourable for its advance into some more parts of the south Bay of Bengal, Andaman Islands and north Andaman Sea between May 29 and 30. 

This year, the monsoon onset over Kerala is expected to be delayed (around June 6 with a model error of ± 4 days), according to IMD, India’s official forecaster.

In the meantime, maximum temperatures are expected to rise gradually by 2-3°C over major parts of north-west India — Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Chandigarh and the hill states — during the next four to five days.

Temperatures are also expected to remain above normal by 2-3°C over some parts of the south peninsula in the next three days.

2019 is a year when seasonal rains will arrive at a time when half of India is facing drought. Even the pre-monsoon season has seen rains below the Long Period Average (LPA). 

For the country as a whole, cumulative rainfall during this year’s pre-monsoon season between March 1 and May 22 is below LPA by 23 per cent — north-west by 31 per cent, south peninsula by 41 per cent, central India by 8 per cent and east and the North-East by 11 per cent. 

 As the southern tip of the country awaits the seasonal rains to arrive, heat wave conditions are likely to continue over Vidarbha and Madhya Maharashtra, Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Odisha for the next four to five days, says the IMD, while predicting fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with isolated heavy falls over Assam and Meghalaya and sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim around May 29 and 30.

Yesterday, heat wave conditions were observed over parts of Vidarbha and pockets of Telangana, Marathwada, Odisha and Madhya Maharashtra. Maximum temperatures were appreciably above normal (3.1°C to 5°C) in some places in these regions. 

According to the IMD, temperatures recorded at 1430 hours today saw a rise by 3 to 6°C over Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura and also many parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, west Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal and west Madhya Pradesh. Temperatures also rose by 1-3°C over Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and pockets of Haryana