The monsoon covered the entire country on Friday two weeks ahead of schedule, delivering a surplus rainfall of 27 per cent, with four days still left for June to end. North-west India delivered a knockout performance over the past two days when it ended a lean patch and returned 39 per cent excess rainfall as on date.

Central India and the southern peninsula suffered a slight dent in their respective surpluses, which now read 48 per cent and 30 per cent respectively. In East and North-East India, the surplus is down to 1 per cent.

Above normal rainfall The Extended Range Forecast System by the Met Department, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, and Indian Council of Agricultural Research, has projected that the next fortnight may see normal or above normal rainfall over Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Telangana.

Either of the next two weeks may see normal or above normal rainfall in Konkan, Goa, coastal Karnataka, north interior Karnataka, east Gujarat, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, coastal Andhra Pradesh, the North-East, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada and Bihar.

The US Centre for Climate Prediction is of the view that significant rain will be confined to the eastern and north-eastern parts of India and the west coast during the week ending July 1. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts says a likely typhoon in the west Pacific may help revive the monsoon flows across the Arabian Sea, peninsular India and the Bay of Bengal from July 2.

The powerful typhoon may track in a west-northwest direction. Such a track for typhoons in the Pacific has traditionally aided the Indian monsoon.

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