Progress of northern limit of the monsoon has slowed down over North India once again across an alignment linking Barmer, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Agra, Rampur, Bijnor, Karnal and Halwara on Tuesday. It, however, managed to advance into more parts of west Uttar Pradesh and Punjab; Chandigarh; and remaining parts of Jammu and Kashmir, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

It will have to wait for a few days more to cover entire Delhi, with IMD assessing conditions as favourable for entry into more parts of Rajasthan; Punjab; Haryana and Delhi; and remaining parts of West Uttar Pradesh by late Wednesday. It might still manage to arrive over the national capital ahead of its normal date of June 30, which is almost a week away.

Network of troughs

A network of cyclonic circulations over eastern parts of the country and short-term troughs linking them and running through adjoining parts of Central India are awaiting suitable systems over north-west India to link up further in order to set up all-important monsoon trough from north-west India extending till and dipping into the Bay to dig up a helpful low-pressure area.

These ‘low’s or other long-sustaining cyclonic circulations move westward to north-westward along the monsoon trough across the core monsoon region to push moist south-easterly monsoon winds into East India, Central India and North-West India across Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Rajasthan and Punjab to cover the entire country normally by July 8.

No western disturbance

Arrival of a western disturbance over North-West India at this juncture would have been helpful since its interaction with monsoon easterlies could likely set off heavy rain over the region and facilitate advance of the monsoon. But no such disturbance is expected to arrive over the region at least until the end of June, according to numerical model predictions.

Rain figures positive

Despite all this, rainfall figures for country as a whole fell into the positive side from Monday, improving from -1 per cent to +2 per cent on Tuesday. This was achieved on the back of extremely heavy to very rainfall received during 24 hours ending on Tuesday morning over parts of east and west India across hills of West Bengal and Sikkim; east Gujarat; and Konkan and Goa.

Extreme heavy rain

Heavy to very heavy rain lashed other parts of hills of West Bengal and Sikkim; east Gujarat; Konkan and Goa; Arunachal Pradesh; Assam and Meghalaya; Bihar; Uttarakhand; Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi; Punjab; East Rajasthan; West Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra and Coastal Karnataka while it was heavy at a few places over Konkan & Goa; and at isolated places over North-Eastern States; Odisha; East Madhya Pradesh; Vidarbha; Chhattisgarh; Telangana; North and South Interior Karnataka.

More rain forecast

The IMD forecast extremely heavy rain for parts of Konkan, Madhya Maharashtra and east Gujarat on Tuesday; isolated very heavy rainfall for subsequent six days over Konkan and Goa; Madhya Maharashtra; east Gujarat; and isolated heavy rainfall over Saurashtra and Kutch. Parts of North-West India; East and Central India; and South Peninsula may als get heavy rain.

Published on June 24, 2025