South-west monsoon has advanced into some more parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab and remaining parts of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday, adding the overall rainfall deficiency was down to 23% from 47% a week ago. The monsoon is likely to cover the entire country 10 days earlier than its normal schedule of July 8, it added.
“Conditions are favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some more parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, remaining parts of Haryana and Punjab during next two days, the met department said. It also stated that during the next 24 hours, widespread heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected over the Konkan and Goa, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Maharashtra.
The monsoon which has been in the ‘active’ mode in the last couple of days have brought down the cumulative rainfall deficiency during June 1-26 to 23% of the benchmark long period average (LPA) from 47% reported a week ago.
Currently the northern limit of monsoon passes through Porbandar and Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Udaipur (Rajasthan), Narnaul (Haryana), Firozpur (Punjab).
In terms of regional variations, monsoon deficiency so far has been 35% (central India) and 45% (south peninsula) so far.
Because of widespread rainfall following the cyclonic storm ‘Biparjoy’ over central part of Rajasthan, the northwest region has received 46% more rainfall than the normal benchmark.
After monsoon covers the entire country, kharif crops including paddy, coarse cereals, pulses and oilseeds sowing activities pick up pace.
The deficient monsoon rains have delayed the sowing of kharif crops – paddy, pulses, oilseeds, cotton and sugarcane.
The sowing was down 4.5% on year to 12.9 million hectare (MH) on year as per data by agriculture ministry data on June 23. The rains in July are most crucial as most of the planting is covered during this period.
The average annual coverage under all kharif crops including cotton, sugarcane, coarse cereals and jute is around 109 MH.
Area under paddy so far has declined by 35% to 1.07 MH, pulses sowing have been marginally higher on year at 0.6 MH.
Private weather forecasting agency Skymet has predicted July rainfall to be ‘below normal’, quantitatively at 95% of LPA, IMD is likely to predict the July outlook this week.
No change has, however, been made to the IMD’s April 11 forecast that the precipitation this monsoon season (June-September) will be in the “normal” range, at 96% of the LPA.
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”.