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March returned a rainfall surplus of nine per cent for the country as a whole despite running bone-dry in the last week.
Some of the highest rain surpluses have been recorded over peninsular India, with the normally dry Marathwada in west Maharashtra receiving as much as 1,059 per cent above normal.Contiguous Madhya Maharashtra (+604 per cent); North Interior Karnataka (+390) Telangana (+375); and South Interior Karnataka (+103 per cent) did not disappoint either.
Rayalaseema (+93) and Vidarbha (+94) were the other notable gainers in the region as seasonally hot and variously humid air rising over land promised more thunderstorm/thundershower activity.
This is considered a good build-up to the South-Wwest monsoon, which is just a couple of months away. But a leading Asian forecaster has said the monsoon could be normal here only in the early phase. Summer showers have been good also in North-Wwest India; most weather models for the region indicate it might experience an indifferent monsoon this year.
Hailstorm threat Haryana and Delhi were the top gainers with 103 per cent each. West Uttar Pradesh (+99) was the next big one, followed by others. The sole exception was west Rajasthan (-7 per cent). But the showers have been punctuated with hailstorms bringing considerable damage to standing rabi crops. Central and peninsular India too witnessed the fury of hailstorms.
Latest forecasts suggest that large parts of North-West India and parts of central and adjoining peninsular India may need to contend with further hailstorm threat.
The Met Department has said that severe thunder squalls with isolated hailstorm may stalk Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh on Monday. It will be isolated over Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, north Rajasthan and west Uttar Pradesh.
Meanwhile, summer showers have been below par in the peripheral regions of the West, South and North-East India. Among the areas hit are Saurashtra, Gujarat, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
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