With the advancement of the Southwest Monsoon over Delhi and remaining parts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan on July 13, the IMD said that the monsoon had covered the entire country against the normal date of July 8.
“In association with the continued prevalence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal in the lower levels since past 4 days, enhanced cloud cover and scattered to fairly widespread rainfall, the southwest monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of the country Thus, the Southwest Monsoon has covered entire country on July 13,” the IMD said in a statement.
On Tuesday morning showers began in Delhi ending a long wait for rain and bringing relief from soaing temperatures. The monsoon was scheduled to reach Delhi on June 27 but prevailing atmospheric conditions delayed its advancement. “The delay in monsoon advance was mainly due to no formation of low pressure area over Bay of Bengal, no presence of monsoon trough at mean sea level near to Delhi and 5-6 Western disturbances moved west to east across North India which dominated over the monsoon easterlies,” the MET department said.
The MET department had first said that the monsoon would arrive early in Delhi by June 15 but changed its forecast on June 14 saying that it would be delayed. On June 5, the MET department said that the monsoon would advance into remaining parts of West Uttar Pradesh, some more parts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and Delhi around July 10. While the neighbouring areas received rain, the monsoon continued to elude the Capital till Tuesday morning.
“Such type of failure by numerical models in prediction of monsoon advance over Delhi is rare and uncommon. It is needless to mention that IMD has predicted well with high accuracy about the advance of monsoon over Delhi quite accurately in the recent past years and also the advance of monsoon over different parts of the country during the monsoon -2021 accurately about four to five days ahead,” the IMD said in a statement on Monday night.
