The southwest monsoon, despite the most delayed onset in the last four years over the Kerala coast on June 8, covered the entire country on Sunday, six days ahead of normal date, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.
The Met department said the monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, thus covering the entire country in the first phase of its four-month (June-September) journey, which accounts for more than 70% of annual precipitation.
The Met department in its forecast said ‘heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over parts of south Peninsular India — south interior Karnataka, coastal Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala during the next five days. This is likely to reduce huge rainfall deficiency in the southern Peninsula to a large extent.
Concerns over the performance of southwest monsoon this year has eased to a large extent, with rainfall deficiency falling to 8% on Sunday from 47% about a fortnight ago because of the ‘active’ mode of monsoon.
IMD has predicted on Friday that July rains, which accounts for around 40% of total monsoon precipitation, could be around 100% of the benchmark long period average (LPA).
The cumulative rainfall across the country, according to IMD during June 1– July 2 has been 8% less than the LPA.
In terms of regional variations, monsoon deficiency has been 46% in the south peninsula and 2% in central India so far.
Because of widespread rainfall caused by low pressure following the cyclonic storm ‘Biparjoy’ over Rajasthan and Gujarat, the northwest region has received 47% more rainfall than “normal.”
No change has, however, been made to the IMD’s May 26 forecast that the precipitation in the whole of the current monsoon season will be in the “normal” range, at 96% of the LPA.
Private forecaster Skymet had earlier said monsoon precipitation this year could be “below normal” at 94% of the LPA. Rainfall between 96-104% of the LPA is considered “normal”.
India, as a whole, has received “below normal” rainfall of 148.6 millimeter (mm) in June, against the LPA of 165.3 mm, a deficit of 10%. Except for the north-west region, all other regions have recorded deficient rainfall this month. The largest rainfall deficit of 69% was reported in Marathwada region in June.
Meanwhile, the met department in its agri-advisory has suggested to farmers to drain out excess water from crop fields to avoid water stagnation in Uttarakhand, east Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, west Madhya Pradesh, Madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, coastal Karnataka, south interior Karnataka and north eastern state.
Paddy, pulses and cotton sowing areas have been down by 26.3%, 1.9% and 14%, respectively, as per agriculture ministry data on Friday. “Kharif crops sowing usually picks up pace in July after the monsoon covers the entire country,” an official said.