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Wednesday, Jul 01, 2009
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Monsoon arrives in Delhi finally

P. Sunderarajan

Covers almost 95 per cent of the country now, says the weatherman

– PHOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR

IT’S HERE: Youngsters celebrate the arrival of the monsoon in Delhi on Tuesday.

NEW DELHI: The much-awaited south-west monsoon has finally arrived in Delhi, bringing the temperature down sharply on Tuesday, June 30, much to the delight of the Capital’s citizens who had been going through a torrid time following a severe heat wave that swept the city for days. (The normal date for the onset here is June 29.)

Speaking to The Hindu, a relieved Director-General of the India Meteorological Department, Ajit Tyagi, said the system now covers almost every other part of North India. “The monsoon has now covered almost 95 per cent of the country. Only some pockets are still to be covered.” Asked about the prospects for the coming days, he said the monsoon would remain active across the country at least for the next one week, though its intensity would vary from region to region.

“Weather prediction models have predicted that the rainfall for the country as a whole for July would be 93 per cent of the long period average for the month, and for August it would be 100 per cent of the LPA for that month. We are confident that the forecast would come true and the rainfall deficit that had built up so far would be wiped out,” Mr. Tyagi said.

The monsoon this year has been progressing in fits and starts. Although it started with a bang, setting over Kerala on May 23, over a week before the normal date of June 1, as late as this past Sunday the northern limit of the system could reach only up to Bhuj and Vadodara in Gujarat; Indore, Hoshangabad, Rajnandgaon in Madhya Pradesh; Cuttack and Balasore in Orissa; Bankura in West Bengal and Gangtok in Sikkim, raising fears of drought-like situations in different parts of the country.

The past two days have indeed been very eventful. The northern limit of the monsoon on Tuesday traversed from Udaipur, Jaipur and Pilani to Hisar, Ludhiana and Jammu.

Noting that there was an east-west trough extending from Sriganganagar in Rajasthan to the head of the Bay of Bengal and two upper air cyclonic circulations presently, one over Punjab and the other over Gujarat and adjoining South Pakistan, weather experts said these would help in taking the monsoon forward.

There are also indications that a low-pressure area could develop in the Bay of Bengal around July 7 giving a major push to the system. However, scientists are keeping their fingers crossed as the signals are preliminary.

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