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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug. 14 A punishing spell of rains driven into the peninsula during the week just past has swung monsoon back into surplus territory, according to latest statistics.

An India Meteorological Department (IMD) update on Thursday said that the profitable outing from end-July helped consummate the two per cent surplus as of Wednesday.

This represents a significant turnaround from a potentially damaging deficit of 23 per cent recorded till as late in July as the last week.

The situation showed signs of improvement ever since, peaking to a surplus of 36 per cent for the week ending Wednesday. Only four Met sub-divisions are now left in the deficit list, two each in the peninsula and in the North-East.

Marathawada (37 per cent) and Kerala (27 per cent) in the peninsula continued to bleed the charts as did Assam-Meghalaya (23 per cent) and Nagaland-Mizoram-Manipur-Tripura (26 per cent) in the North-East.

Met sub-divisions recording excess or normal rainfall now count up to 32, three better than the last week and as many as 12 more than during the comparable period in the last year (2007). Two peninsular sub-divisions, Telengana (+20 per cent) and coastal Andhra Pradesh (+22 per cent) came back strongly to post surplus rain figures. North interior Karnataka (-18 per cent), Madhya Maharashtra (-13 per cent) and Rayalaseema (-11 per cent) too, climbed back to normal (within the -20 per cent threshold) category.

In contrast, most of the sub-divisions in the north, northwest and east India continued to run surpluses running into double-figures. These are set to swell even more in view of rains forecast over the next few days from prevailing helpful atmospheric features.

On Thursday, the upper air cyclonic circulation over north Rajasthan persisted and was interacting with a westerly trough that crossed in from the border.

This is expected to bring about fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over east Rajasthan during the next 24 hours and over Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, West Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand during the next three days.

The monsoon trough passed through Bikaner, Alwar, Etawah, Muzaffarpur, Malda and then eastwards to Nagaland.

Model predictions suggest a feeble ‘low’ taking shape over the northwest Bay within the next three days.

The current alignment of the trough is expected to cause fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over the North-East, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and the Gangetic plains during the four days.

During the 24 hours ending Thursday morning, the monsoon was active over coastal and south interior Karnataka. Rainfall occurred at most places over coastal Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep, at many places over south interior Karnataka and at few places over north interior Karnataka.

Towards the immediate north, the monsoon was active over Konkan-Goa and Gujarat. Rainfall occurred at many places over Madhya Maharashtra and at isolated places over Marathawada.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Climate & Weather

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