The Hindu Business Line : Another spell of rain likely by month-end

A flurry of rain activity in Central and Northwest India since the beginning of August had raised expectations that the July deficit would be wiped out in its entirety by August 15.

But, the cumulative all-India deficit in precipitation, assessed at 10 per cent as on August 4, could be made good to the extent of an incremental 3 per cent only during the week beginning August 15, said Dr M. Rajeevan, Director-Forecasting, India Meteorological Department (IMD), Pune.

The all-India deficit stands reduced to 7 per cent as on August 11, Dr Rajeevan told Business Line.

The overall monsoon performance as on date was 93 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA).

However, thanks to an evolving atmospheric disturbance over the Bay of Bengal that is expected to move towards the coast by Saturday, the IMD was expecting to see another `good spell' unleash itself over the mainland.

This spell could last for as long as 10 days.

"That should bring up, by end-August, monsoon performance to at least 98 per cent of the LPA, which is close to our forecast," Dr Rajeevan said.

But this would still leave some `spots of bother' in strategically important meteorological sub-divisions receiving `less than adequate' rainfall at the end of the season.

Among these would be extreme West Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Western Uttar Pradesh.

Expected level of monsoon performance for the rest of the season would, however, ensure that the deficit would not be `that high' even in these areas. Rainfall would be `near normal' or `excess' over the rest of the regions.

The effective deficit area would have been reduced to `an insignificant size' when compared to the total area of the country.