The Hindu Business Line : Vigorous monsoon spell in North India

THE well-marked low-pressure area over northwest Bay of Bengal and adjacent Gangetic West Bengal has concentrated into a depression on Tuesday and moved in a northwest direction to position itself over Jharkhand.

This, in tandem with the prevailing mid-tropospheric circulation over Gujarat, has brought the entire area from Gujarat to Orissa under a blanket of rain with heavy to very heavy rainfall being reported from many parts.

According to Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Director, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), this atmospheric combination provides for most productive spell during monsoon.

Though the depression has moved inland denying itself further supply of moisture from its earlier base on sea, the system is expected to thrive on prevailing monsoonal flow for at least a day or two. By the same token, its progress deep into inland will be compromised, too.

Model prediction suggests that the system will get as far inland as Madhya Pradesh, before dissipating. Unlike tropical cyclones, monsoon depressions can sustain for much longer even after their umbilical cord with the sea has been cut.

The month of June normally witnesses two `lows' in the Bay, but this year this was confined to the one generated on Monday. July and August will produce five such systems each, while September will have three.

The northern limit of monsoon appears to have stagnated on Tuesday because this is as far as the depression can power it to, managing to reach more parts in the north than is normal at this time of the year. Jammu and Kashmir, west and north Rajasthan and parts of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh would have to wait for the next spell to bring themselves under rain cover. But the agriculturally productive area in Rajasthan, that is the eastern parts of the State, has already been covered in the initial phase.

In the meanwhile, an approaching western disturbance is expected to hit the northwest on June 30 and will combine with prevailing monsoon currents to trigger good rain in Jammu, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttaranchal and west Uttar Pradesh for two days.

Latest statistics reveal that the overall rain deficit for June has been brought down from 59 per cent (June 22) to 35 per cent. Dr Gupta expected that the ongoing rainfall would help slice another 10 per cent of this, so that the monthly deficit settles around 25 per cent.

In its update, the NCMRWF said that the monsoon has so far covered most parts of the country except parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and west Rajasthan. On Tuesday, the northern limit of monsoon passed through Deesa, Ajmer, Jaipur, Delhi, Patiala, Dharamshala and Jammu.

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