It’s not as gloomy as it looks, says Met dept | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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It’s not as gloomy as it looks, says Met dept

Hindustan Times | ByHT Correspondents, New Delhi/mumbai
Jul 09, 2009 12:34 AM IST

The Indian Meteorological Department sees no reason to be alarmed about deficient rainfall in various parts of the country.

The Indian Meteorological Department sees no reason to be alarmed about deficient rainfall in various parts of the country.

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The whole country had till Tuesday received 63 per cent of normal rainfall.

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But IMD director of weather forecasting B.P. Yadav feels the situation all over India has actually improved over the past fortnight and there is no need for states to start pressing the panic button.

Till Tuesday, seven northwestern states — Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu and Kashmir — had received only 52 per cent of normal rainfall. This marked a 1 percentage point improvement since June 24, he said.

“We are expecting sporadic thundershowers in the next three days in the northwest. From mid-July, we expect monsoon activity to be higher in the northwest due to some systems of the Bay of Bengal and a favourable position of the monsoon
trough over central India,” Yadav told the Hindustan Times on Wednesday.

On June 24, the IMD had announced that the rainfall during the monsoon season (June to September) would be 93 per cent of the normal or the historical average of 89 cm of rain throughout the country.

“Usually, when the monsoon is active in central and eastern India, it is weak in the northwest and vice versa. The systems forming in the Bay of Bengal are moving westward across central India and going towards the Konkan region and Gujarat. For the next three days the Konkan region, Maharashtra and Gujarat are going to have very heavy rains,” Yadav said.

Yadav said that though the country as a whole has a deficiency of 37 per cent of normal rainfall till July 7, the value has
dropped from 54 per cent deficiency on June 24.

This drop of 17 per cent was due to considerable improvement in the rainfall scenario, he said.

The Maharashtra government is, however, alarmed over the delayed rains, which is likely to affect the state’s agricultural output this kharif season. The state government may resort to cloud seeding if there is a further delay.

According to official statistics released on Wednesday, only 21 per cent of the state’s total farm area has been sowed so far and the dams have accumulated just 11 per cent of their total storage capacity.

The issue was debated fiercely at Wednesday’s weekly cabinet meeting. Most colleagues wanted Chief Minister Ashok Chavan to approve of cloud seeding, especially in dam catchment areas.

“We will wait for a week or so before trying this option,” said Chavan.

Cloud seeding is the process of spreading either dry ice (or more commonly silver iodide aerosols) into the upper part of clouds to try to stimulate the precipitation process and form rain.

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