With just 10 days to go, the South-West monsoon has opened a new front along the country’s eastern flanks even as it worked its way around the West and North-West overnight on Monday morning.

An India Met Department update said that a fresh low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal has curled its way into Jharkhand and neighbourhood, scaling up the monsoon to vigorous mode along the hills.

Rain deficit The overall rainfall deficit has reduced further to 14 per cent with Central India making major gains from the current spell where the regional deficit stood revised lower to 13 per cent from the high teens.

Amongst the four broad geographical regions, North-West India stood worst with 20 per cent. South peninsula too has benefited from the latest spell, bringing down its shortfall to 14 per cent.

Over East and North-East India, the deficit remains unchanged at eight per cent from Sunday. The late revival of fortunes was unexpected and in the best traditions of truant nature of the monsoon.

IMD has now joined global models to predict that the ongoing spell would sustain in various intensities over many parts of the country right until the end of the month.

Heavy showers Moderate to heavy showers were reported from the plains and foothills of West Bengal, East Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and the North-eastern States until the morning.

Towards the West and Northwest, a prevailing ‘low’ over North Gujarat and adjoining South Rajasthan has been driving rain into Saurashtra and Kutch, Punjab, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, and Konkan-Goa.

Most parts of the country will remain variously wet over the remaining 10 days of the monsoon, with some heavier showers forecast for the South during the latter part.

Early forecasts suggest that the Bay of Bengal, specifically the Andaman Sea, could conjure up a low-pressure area towards the last few days of the month with scope for intensification.

Bay storm? A storm forecaster model featured by the US Climate Prediction Centre saw this developing into a likely storm and racing away west-northwest towards the Odisha coast during the first week of October.

This would blast away the last vestiges of the southwest monsoon and prepare the ground ready for the monsoon-in-reverse, i.e. northeast monsoon or winter monsoon.

But reliable leads on the emerging weather could be had only after the prevailing two ‘low’s sign out from the East and the North-West.

El Nino years have in the past coincided with average or even above normal North-East monsoon though there is no direct cause-effect relationship between the two.

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