Front Page

Monsoon situation still precarious

NEW DELHI: Five weeks into the season, the monsoon situation in the country continues to be precarious. Large parts continue to be in deficit, despite the vigorous rainfall activity over several areas over the past week.

As of Wednesday, deficiency in cumulative rainfall since June 1 continued to be more than 20 per cent in as many as 25 meteorological sub-divisions out of the total of 36, or almost two-thirds of the country.

In eight sub-divisions, the cumulative rainfall continued to fall under the “scanty” category, with a deficiency of more than 60 per cent.

Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, and Chhattisgarh have been the worst hit. Till Wednesday, the cumulative rainfall was deficient to the extent of 80 per cent in west Uttar Pradesh, 75 per cent in Gujarat, 71 per cent in Punjab, 69 per cent in Himachal Pradesh, 65 per cent in Uttarakhand, 62 per cent in the Haryana-Chandigarh-Delhi region.

Experts at the India Meteorological Department are, however, hopeful things would be better in the coming days. Pointing out that the condition was worse a week ago (the cumulative deficiency on July 1 was 46 per cent), the experts said there were indications that the current phase of active monsoon would continue.

While on the western flank of the country, signs were clear that widespread rainfall activity would continue uninterrupted, on the eastern flank, there were indications that a fresh spurt could emerge around next Tuesday, following the formation of a low pressure area over the west central and adjoining northwest region of the Bay of Bengal around Monday.

The experts said that the fresh pulse following the low pressure over the Bay would certainly benefit Orissa, Bihar, Jharkhand and the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh. But, they are keeping their fingers crossed on whether it would be able to go further.

Policy-makers are most concerned about the north-west region, comprising Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, west Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan. This region has been left high and dry, while it has been pouring over the rest of the country over the past one week.

Forecast models have also indicated that the rainfall in the region for the season as a whole would be deficient by 19 per cent. In contrast, the same models have forecast that Central India could get a rainfall of 99 per cent of its long period average, the southern peninsula 93 per cent and the northeast 92 per cent. The forecasts come with a rider: there could be an error of plus or minus eight per cent.