Monsoon covers country, may get typhoon boost

NEW DELHI: The southwest monsoon covered the entire country on Thursday, two days after its normal date, on the back of a surge in rain that has seen the monsoon deficit reduce 8 percentage points in the last five-six days.

Monsoon on Thursday swept into parts of Gujarat and western Rajasthan that were the only areas left out of the system so far. The normal date by which the monsoon covers the whole of India is July 15.

Typhoon Rammasun, that wreaked havoc in the Philippines over the past two days, is expected to give the Indian monsoon another push after July 20. The storm is currently over South China Sea, headed in the northwest direction towards north Vietnam.

"The typhoon will weaken after hitting land and appear over the Bay of Bengal as a low-pressure system around July 19-20. We expect it to bring more rain to India after that," said BP Yadav, director, India Meteorological Department.

Meanwhile, the monsoon remains active over large parts of the country, including the deficit regions of central and northwest India.

"Good rains are also expected in the next 48 hours over Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh, including Delhi, due to formation of a westerly trough," said Yadav. The deficit in these states is currently more than 60 per cent, making them three of the five meteorological subdivisions to have received 'scanty' rainfall so far.

The monsoon deficit on Thursday was 35 per cent, one percentage point less than the previous day. Apart from the five subdivisions were rains have been scanty so far, 22 subdivisions have report deficient rainfall (20 per cent to 59 per cent below normal). IMD divides the country into 39 meteorological subdivisions, just nine of which have received normal rains.

With good rains forecast for the rest of July, IMD expects the deficit to progressively narrow in the coming days. This year's monsoon had been very weak till the first half of July, when the rain deficit had grown to 43 per cent. IMD has predicted below-normal rains this year at 93 per cent of the long term average.