More rains in the north as monsoon set to bid wet farewell

But these systems are transient and the real monsoon needs a push to revive fully. ‘‘The monsoon is expected to revive in full flow around September 13 when a system from South China Sea is expected to move to Bay of Bengal,’’ said Akhilesh Gupta of the National Central for Medium Range Weather Forecasting.

The overall picture is encouraging: the country has had its share of monsoon rain—79 per cent of total rain has already come—so this is the last quarter of the monsoon. The official date for withdrawal of monsoon from Delhi, Punjab and Haryana is September 15. The monsoon has officially withdrawn from Rajasthan.

According to weathermen, there is no cause for worry in Mumbai—there is no likelihood of a July 26 deluge repeat. This time it’s covering entire Madhya Maharashtra and North Central Andhra Pradesh, unlike the localised deluge the last time.

The rain over Maharashtra is from a weather system emanating from the equator, almost a line of low pressure joined together by cyclonic systems on either side called the East-West shear zone. This system travels one degree of latitude per day. In the next four days, it is likely to cover Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha, East Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and Marathwada.

It is raining over Delhi because of a western disturbance over Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir. The disturbance will last 48 hours and heavy rain is forecast for Delhi, Punjab and Haryana tomorrow. This area is deficient by 19 per cent.

One lesson to be learnt from this monsoon is the major shift in the spacial and temporal patterns—the overall rain is normal but a lot of areas are left dry or it pours heavily on a particular day, distorting figures. This is a pattern that has been building over the last few monsoons.

Although no Met scientist will say this on record,this is in consistence with what climate change experts have been predicting. For example, inspite of national averages being good—entire India is only deficient by 8%—the number of districts that have deficient or scanty rain are 38%. The overall rainfall figures do not catch the trauma of agriculture. For agriculture, steady, regular rain is most important.This last phase of rain in North India might help a little in alleviating the crop situation to some extent.