Hardly has an incumbent western disturbance begun to exit Jammu and Kashmir than a watch been mounted in the region for the next one.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has agreed with peer model forecasts that a fresh westerly system would push into the region by Sunday.

The season is far from over, if global forecasts are anything to go by, as per which the westerly activity may extend even beyond the first week of March.

An IMD update on Thursday evening said that widespread rain or snowfall has been reported from Jammu and Kashmir and scattered over Himachal Pradesh during the 24 hours ending in the morning. Isolated rainfall has been reported from Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan during this period.

In the south, fairly widespread rainfall occurred over Kerala; scattered over Tamil Nadu and north interior Karnataka; and isolated over Madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada, south Andhra Pradesh and south interior Karnataka.

Outlook until Monday spoke about the possibility of scattered to isolated rain for parts of northwest and east India as well as for those in the southern peninsula.

Monsoon outlook

Global models surveyed seemed to suggest enhanced probabilities for normal to slightly above normal rainfall during pre-monsoon and monsoon seasons for the country.

These are early indicators subject to updates on a month-to-month basis and should be viewed with caution, according to independent analysts.

The La Nina conditions in the equatorial and east Pacific, normally identified with a successful Indian monsoon without direct cause-effect relationship, has peaked over.

The equatorial Pacific is now expected to relapse into what experts described as ‘neutral' conditions to coincide with the Indian monsoon.

The fact that the probabilities of much-feared El Nino, whose tenure in the warmer east and equatorial Pacific has often led to suppressed rain over India, may not rear its head is itself reassuring enough.

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