India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that generally dry climes would prevail over interior peninsular India for the next week.

This may worsen the rain deficit situation in the region assessed locally at 29 per cent as on Thursday.

CRUCIAL PERIOD

A lot of will depend on the expected revival of rains around July 21 over central India and how long they can sustain during the last 10 days of the month.

What August would have in store would become even more crucial, since the long shadow of a brewing El Nino in the east Pacific could pose a threat.

Global models suggest monsoon revival over central India by July 21, but are not sure how the rains would pan out over the region.

As has been already indicated, the monsoon has shifted activity to the foothills of the Himalayas and adjoining eastern and northeast India.

RAIN WARNING

The IMD has warned of heavy to very heavy rains over sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh during next two days.

Heavy rainfall has been forecast also over Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Bihar and east Uttar Pradesh during this period.

Elsewhere, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand will witness heavy rains on Saturday, the IMD said.

The monsoon is expected to remain weak over the rest of the country, though parts of the southeast coast and west coast could witness occasional showers.

The heavy to very heavy rains over the foothills and adjoining east India have generally been known to rub off some impact on the southeast coast.

DEFICIT AT 23 PC

Coastal areas and adjoining interiors of Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu would receive varying amounts of rains in this manner.

Meanwhile, the all India rain deficit has worsened by one percentage point to 23 on Thursday.

This came on the back of weakening of rains over northwest Rajasthan and Punjab and also from lack of back-up of rains elsewhere.

The deficit figures for other regions are central India-23 per cent; northwest India-36 per cent; and east and northeast India-13 per cent.

>vinson.kurian@thehindu.co.in

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