Monsoon rainfall since June has been 14% more than what is normal for until this time of the year. So far, India has received 28.7 cm rainfall as opposed to the typical 25.2 cm. Only nine of the 40 days of monsoon so far has rainfall been less than the daily average, according to data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
About 40% of districts received excess rains but 27% of them have seen deficient rains, which means they have received at least 20% less rains than they usually do. There are 29 districts in Uttar Pradesh, 17 in Gujarat and 16 in Jammu and Kashmir that have posted deficient rains. Paradoxically, U.P. also leads in the number of districts with excess rains (35), followed by Bihar (32) and Madhya Pradesh (28). Currently, the IMD collates rainfall data from 681 districts.
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The good rains so far are helped by the monsoon’s timely onset, on June 1, as well as it covering the country in record time. Two weeks ago, the IMD said that the southwest monsoon had covered the entire country at a pace not seen since 2013.
The normal date for the monsoon to span the whole country is July 8.
Monsoon trough
The rain bearing concentration of clouds, called the monsoon trough, oscillates from the east to the west of the country. In its forecast on Wednesday, the IMD said that this trough is likely to shift northwards towards the foothills of Himalayas from July 9 onwards. In addition to this, moist southwesterly/southerly winds from Bay of Bengal at lower tropospheric levels were likely to converge over the northeast and the adjoining east India from Friday, July 8, and southwesterly/southerly winds from the Arabian Sea very likely to converge over northwest India, also from Friday.
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This would bring heavy rains over the western Himalayan region, the northern parts of Punjab and Haryana, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim, and the northeastern States until early next week. Heavy rains were also very likely over Uttarakhand on July 11-12; over east Uttar Pradesh from July 10-12; over Bihar on July 10-11; over sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh over July 9-11.
