Rain deficit at 1% despite disquiet in Bay

The overall rain deficit has been contained to one per cent despite the monsoon going into an incipient stage as a result of the continued disquiet in the Bay of Bengal.

But an extended outlook by India Meteorological Department (IMD) valid until July 25 said that the rain would scale up over Gujarat and Rajasthan once again even as the ongoing activity over central India would decrease.

LATER SURGE

But global models are indicating renewed activity during the last week of this month with most parts of the country coming under a wet cover.

The fortunes of the system, however, are tied with the alignment of the monsoon rough, which has been vacillating at best and ‘dry-docked' at worst as on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, however, the eastern end of the trough has reverted back to dip into the Bay of Bengal, the most desirable positioning during the course of the monsoon.

Only, it requires the western end too to follow suit, but the IMD said in an update on Wednesday evening that it lay drawn far to the north.

Strong cross-equatorial flows continued to sweep across the Arabian Sea and the southern peninsula, the IMD noted.

HEAVY RAINS

The alignment of the western end of the trough, the strong cross-equatorial flows and the offshore trough, though truncated from Maharashtra coast to Kerala coast, were enough to sustain heavy to very rains across disparate regions of the country.

The major stations recording heavy rainfall (in cm) during the last 24 hours ending on Wednesday morning were Bagati-23; Bhira-21; Darjeeling and Mahabaleshwar-20 each; Sheopur-10; Agumbe-9; Rajgarh and Cherrapunji-8 each; Mumbai (Santa Cruz) and Kota-7 each.

Kalpana-1 satellite picture showed the presence of convective (rain-bearing) clouds over parts of Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, east Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, east India, north, central and southeast Bay of Bengal, north Andaman Sea and the Lakshadweep area.

WEATHER WARNING

A weather warning valid for the next two days said that isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur over Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Vidarbha.

Isolated heavy rainfall has been forecast over Uttar Pradesh, Konkan, Goa, West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Meghalaya on Thursday.

A short-term forecast valid until Saturday said that widespread rain or thundershowers would break out over central India and along the west coast.

Fairly widespread rain or thundershowers has been forecast over the north-eastern States, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

It would be fairly widespread also to the northwest over Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh on Thursday and scattered thereafter.

Scattered rain or thundershowers are likely over the remaining parts of the country.

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