Rain surplus inches up back to 2%

Rainfall recorded over the country until Wednesday (June 10-August 13) has reclaimed a token surplus with parts of Central India and North-West coming under the heavy rainfall belt from late last week. But it has still not been good enough to make up the deficits in the Union Territories of Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir, and Himachal Pradesh.

A fresh low-pressure area formed on Thursday over the North-West Bay of Bengal off the North Odisha and West Bengal coasts.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects the system to get organised over the Bay in the next two days. Global models suggest that it may cross the North Odisha coast into Chhattisgarh in the subsequent two days. It may travel in a West-North-West direction along the atmospheric freeway set up by the monsoon trough lying extended across the plains on Wednesday from Ferozepur to Narnaul, Gwalior, Satna, Ambikapur, Chaibasa and onward into the centre of the low pressure area in typical settings identified with active monsoon conditions.

Evening satellite pictures showed intense clouding over Odisha — extending from Sambalpur, Kamakhyanagar, Bolangir, Bhawanipatna and Rayagada to Brahmapur — and less intense over Andhra Pradesh across Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam, Kakinada, Vijayawada and Nellore; and over Telangana from Khammam, Hyderabad and Mahabubnagar.

Adjoining North Interior Karnataka and western parts of Maharashtra – from Kalaburagi, Bagalkot, Hubballi, Sangli, Panaji, Ratnagiri, Sangli, Pune, Ahmednagar, Aurangabad and Nashik to Jalgaon and Malegaon – also witnessed clouding with the low in the Bay attracting south-westerly monsoon flows from the Arabian Sea from the other side of the Peninsula.

According to the IMD, the western end of the monsoon trough would start shifting to the South from Independence Day on Saturday, indicating strengthening of the rainfall over North-West India, West India and adjoining Central India. By this time, the low in the Bay would have ventured into the farming heartland along the plains.

Heavy rain forecast

It has forecast fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with heavy to very heavy falls at isolated places over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh during the next two days. Subsequently, the rainfall may start to ease with the monsoon trough moving to the South, and dragging the heavy rain belt along with it.

In this manner, fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with heavy to very heavy falls will once again break out over Gujarat state, Konkan, Goa, the Ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra, East Rajasthan and parts of Central India during the next 4-5 days. Isolated extremely heavy falls are forecast over Gujarat state and East Rajasthan during the next 2-3 days, the IMD said. 

To the East, it saw fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with heavy to very heavy falls lashing Odisha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in the next 2-3 days since they would subject themselves to rain bands let loose by the prospective low-pressure area, which would be in the process of organising itself better during this period.

Heavy overnight rain in North

How the build-up to a low-pressure can prove moderately to excessively wet was proved till Thursday morning when Himachal Pradesh recorded extremely heavy rainfall while it was heavy to very heavy over East Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Konkan, Goa and Telangana; and heavy over Uttarakhand, East Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, West Bengal and Sikkim. 

Some of the stations receiving heavy rain (in cm) are: Bilaspur-26; Jalore-17; Matheran-16; Sirohi-15; Mahabaleshwar and Kothagudem-13 each; Kanpur-12; Hardoi and Bharatpur-10 each; Katra, Dhanau and Varanasi-9 each; Sultanpur and Alwar-8 each; Chandigarh, Delhi (Safdarjung), Fursatganj and Malanjkhand-7 each; and Surendranagar, Surat, Raipur and Khammam-6 each.

An extended outlook for August 18-20 said that fairly widespread to widespread rainfall/thundershowers may lash the Maharashtra-Goa and Karnataka coasts; Gujarat State; East Rajasthan; parts of Central, East and North-East India. Isolated heavy to very heavy falls are likely over Central and North-East India; Maharashtra-Goa and Karnataka coasts; Gujarat State; and East Rajasthan.