The Hindu Business Line : Weather alarm for northwest; overall deficit 3 pc

CLEAR skies in the north and the northwest at this time of this year have prompted meteorologists to sound a warning that goes much beyond the `moisture stress watch' these areas have already been placed under.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, weathermen who keep a close tab on the southwest monsoon disclosed to Business Line that it was unusual for the northwest to have clear blue skies at this time of the year. Most parts, including the national capital, have woken up to pleasant mornings over the past few days.

These are conditions associated with early withdrawal of monsoon and winter conditions setting in. Meteorologists are hoping that this would not be the case at a time when the monsoon has more than a month left to run through with its normal course.

But they are not getting positive indications from elsewhere in the country to support a best-case scenario. For instance, the monsoon trough has entirely withdrawn to the foothills of the Himalayas on Friday.

For days together, rainfall has continued to be subdued towards the west of the trough, which is practically the whole of the northwest and west central India.

Towards the southeast, signals emanating from the Bay of Bengal are not exactly helpful either. Monsoon circulations have now been getting concentrated into the central Bay of Bengal, which can only presage weak monsoon conditions over the mainland. An active monsoon phase is triggered from a low-pressure area borne either in the north or northwest Bay (Head Bay).

It has been quite some time since the last productive `low' moved inland from the Bay, taking the rain belt along. The monsoon systems that followed have largely been upper air cyclonic circulations. And there is hardly anything in the air to suggest a pick-up in the easterly flows any time soon.

Unfortunately, the Government does not seem to have grasped the enormity of the situation. What it was worried about was only the July rainfall, which somehow passed muster.

But standing crops in the rain-fed areas, especially rice, desperately need more than one spell of rain in August to sustain growth. There is now a real threat of these crops will get affected, the weathermen say.

Meanwhile, Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Director of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), told Business Line on Friday that the monsoon has gone into another break-like phase.

The retreat of the monsoon lock, stock and barrel to the Himalayan foothills was the best indication of this.

As is typical of the phase, rainfall activity is now concentrated in the northeast and southeast peninsular India. During the past 24 hours, fairly widespread rains have occurred over the Northeastern States, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

3 pc below normal: Overall monsoon rainfall up till August 24 has declined to three per cent below normal, according to the India Meteorological Department.

Actual all-India area weighted rainfall till that date has been 646.7 mm against a normal of 668.0 mm. The number of meteorological sub-divisions receiving `excess' rainfall is five (against six at the end of the previous week), `normal' unchanged at 23 and `deficient' eight (seven).

Among the subdivisions where rainfall has deteriorated are West Rajasthan, West Uttar Pradesh, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry.

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