Two of India’s best-known stations for spectacular monsoon downpour lived up to its their names during the 24 hours ending on Tuesday morning when Cherrapunji and Maswsynram recorded extremely heavy rain of 56 cm and 47 cm despite seasonal rains drying up at most other places in the country.

Extremely heavy falls lashed parts of Assam and Meghalaya while it was heavy to very heavy over Arunachal Pradesh and heavy over Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada, East Madhya Pradesh, plains of West Bengal, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Gujarat on Monday.

Very heavy rain recorded

Nestling in the hilly terrains of the state of Meghalaya in North-East India, Cherrapunji and Mawsynram are also among the wettest in the world. The monsoon becomes active in North-East India, parts of East India and along the East Coast when it shuts itself out over the rest of the country.

Other centres recording heavy rain (nine cm or above) through Monday are Barpeta and Manash-16; Beky Railway Bridge and Majhian-14 cm each; Kumargram-13; Roing, Shella and Barobhisha-12 each; Panbari and Manihari-11 each; Basar, Soegaon and Wakwali-10 each; Jawhar and Berhampore-9 each.

Meanwhile, an extended outlook by India Meteorological Department for July 4-6 predicted fairly widespread to widespread rainfall and isolated heavy for most parts of North-East and East India; scattered to fairly widespread over Peninsular India and the islands to either side.

Monsoon delay over Delhi

Isolated rain is forecast for Central, West and North-West India with the IMD predicting that monsoon onset over Delhi and surrounding parts of North-West India may be delayed by a week beyond the normal timeline of June 30. Intruding dry westerlies rule out any leeway for monsoon easterlies here.

Prevailing conditions and large-scale atmospheric features and wind patterns suggest that no favourable conditions are likely to develop for advance of the monsoon into remaining parts of Rajasthan, West Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Punjab for another week or so, the IMD added.

Subdued rainfall activity is predicted to prevail also over the North-West, Central and Western parts of Peninsular India during next five days. Isolated/scattered thunderstorm activity accompanied with lightning and rain may lash these regions during this subdued monsoon activity period.

Weak MJO pulse seen

The stalemate in the North-West is expected to be broken into the second week of July, normally the rainiest month of the four monsoon months, as monsoon easterlies hopefully make it bold to reach out into the region beyond Uttar Pradesh and force intruding dry westerlies to retreat from the region.

Meanwhile, the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Administration (NOAA) hints that a weak pulse of the monsoon-driving Madden-Julian Oscillation wave may sail into West Indian Ocean and adjoining South Arabian Sea during the week ending July 6.

Prising open parts of West Coast

This is forecast to ‘prise open’ a quarter of the dry West Coast (mainly Kerala and Karnataka) for pushing across monsoon westerly to south-westerlies from the Arabian Sea and trigger the first wave of rain over the region after a delayed onset on June 3 and followed by the ongoing more-than-a-week-long hiatus.

Moist easterly winds are likely to pick up in strength, causing enhanced rainfall along the Himalayan foothills of North Bihar, North Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand from Thursday to Saturday reaffirming a break-monsoon period. Heavy rain is forecast for Uttarakhand and the foothills of East Uttar Pradesh.

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