The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)

IMD: Normal or above rainfall in July

THE COUNTRY will receive normal or above rainfall during July, the India Meteorolog­ical Department (IMD) , in its monthlyrai­nfallandte­mperature outlook released on Monday.

Good and widespread normal rainfall is forecast over all areas of the country barring northwest and central India, north Tamil Nadu. The maximum temperatur­es will remain above normal where subdued rainfall is predicted.

“Both the weather models and past statistics indicate that the country will receive normal or above rainfall during this month,” said Mrutyunjay Mohapatra,directorge­neral,imd.

Whenever June rainfall has been below normal during 20 of the 25 years since a century, the monthly rainfall during the following July over the country was above normal, the IMD chief said.

There will be favourable ocean conditions, during July, in the form of neutral Indian Ocean Dipole and active Madden Jullian Oscillatio­n -- both of which regulate the intra-seasonal rainfall over the country.

Rainfall during June this year hadendedre­maining-11percent and some of the major contributo­ryfactorsw­erestalled­monsoon advance and MJO which was not in a favourable phase to aid the monsoons. Moreover, the number of low pressure affected days wasthreefo­rtheoneeve­ntwhich emerged in the north Bay of Bengal during the fag end of June. Whereas, normally, the country witnesses atleast three such systems during the onset month, the IMD officials said.

India received the lowest June rainfallth­isyearsinc­e2020—the third consecutiv­e year when the country's rainfall in this month was below average. The all-india rainfall for the season, which commencede­xactlyamon­thago, stood at 147.2 mm and this was 11 per cent short of normal.

Being the onset month, the monsoon does not cover the whole of India and some rainfall deficit is normal. June rainfall amounts to 15 per cent of the country's total southwest monsoon seasonal rainfall of 880mm (1971-2020 data).

This season, the Southwest Monsoon arrived over Kerala on May 30 and progressed on time up until Maharashtr­a, where it advanced around June 9. Thereafter, the weak monsoon currents and the absence of favourable synoptic systems stalled the monsoon advance over West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, and Bihar along with areas of Chhattisga­rh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh.