E-Paper
Widespread rain along west coast likely from today: IMD
According to the IMD, the trough has remained south of its normal position for most of July which led to intense rain and flooding over central India, but over 40% rain deficiency in the states along the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
Widespread rain is expected over the west coast and central India from Saturday as a monsoon trough, an elongated low pressure area, is likely to shift southwards, a senior official of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said.
A trough is an elongated low pressure area where most of the moisture in concentrated. During the monsoon, it usually extends from Central Pakistan to Odisha and covers the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP) area.
According to the IMD, the trough has remained south of its normal position for most of July which led to intense rain and flooding over central India, but over 40% rain deficiency in the states along the IGP, including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
Following a deficit of 8% in rainfall in June, July so far has recorded 10% excess rain but it has not supported agriculture largely.
As on Friday, there was a 50% rainfall deficiency over Gangetic West Bengal, 51% over Jharkhand, 45% over Bihar, 61% over east Uttar Pradesh and 52% over west Uttar Pradesh. On the other hand, Telangana has recorded 111% excess rain, 73% excess over Marathwada, 79% excess over Saurashtra and Kutch; 48% excess over Vidarbha among others. There is 10% excess rain over the country.
“Oceanic features, wind condition, sea surface temperatures, cloud triggering capacity of the atmosphere, mid latitude systems influence the position of the east-west monsoon trough,” said RK Jenamani, senior scientist, national weather forecasting centre at IMD.
Generally, the eastern side of the monsoon trough oscillates, sometimes southwards and sometimes northwards. Southward migration results in active/vigorous monsoon over major parts of India but northward movement leads to a break monsoon condition and heavy rain along the foothills of Himalayas and sometimes, floods in Brahmaputra river.
“There was some rainfall over the IGP states during July 20 to 22 but now, the monsoon trough will shift southwards, which means rainfall will reduce over northern states and the IGP region and increase over central India. The trough will shift northwards again after July 26. This is the oscillation which determines distribution of monsoon,” said IMD director general M Mohapatra.
Crops were also destroyed in many parts of central India due to excess rains. In the week ending July 8, rice, the main summer staple, witnessed a worrying 24% drop in acreage over the same period last year, latest available official data shows.
“Intense rainfall in Telangana last week resulted in heavy flooding leading to crop losses. Farmers who have shown the crops after earlier rains suffered losses. Vegetable crops also suffered losses as they were just ready to harvest,” said GV Ramanjaneyulu, executive director at the Centre for Sustainable Agriculture in Hyderabad.
