We have entered last month of Southwest Monsoon 2018. With this, the picture is pretty much clear, where the season is heading to. Till now all the months have ended on the deficit note. June ended with the rainfall deficiency of 5%, July by 6% and August by 8%. September too seems to be no better than these.
East and Northeast Monsoon, which is the main contributor in the countrywide rainfall during the season, gave the worst performance. In fact, it is the most deficient pocket with deficiency mounting to 27%.
Capital city of India, Delhi normally records less rains than Mumbai and Kolkata during the Monsoon season on account of its geographical conditions. Delhi sees 632 mm of rains from June to September, while Mumbai receives around four times more than Delhi i.e. 2261 mm of rain. Kolkata’s figure is also double from Delhi i.e. 1359 mm.
Contrary to the pan India performance, metro cities have shown satisfactory performance. Let us take a look at Monsoon’s seasonal performance in various metro cities:
Delhi – Southwest Monsoon 2018 reached Delhi around its normal date i.e.June 29. Monsoon was week initially but picked up pace during second half of July. In July, Delhi received 286 mm of rain against its normal of 187 mm. August was also near normal. In fact, September has also begun on a good note, as the first three days of the month has seen 129 mm. The seasonal normal rainfall for Delhi is 631.8 mm. However, as of today the actual rainfall stands at 660.6 mm.
Mumbai – Mumbai being the rainiest metro city among all receives torrential rains during the season. July and August inexplicably different. While July saw deluge with five consecutive days of three-digit rains, August saw lowest rainfall in years. So far, Mumbai has seen 2212.2 against the normal of 2260.9. Major contribution came from July that recorded 1139.1 mm of rain against its normal of 840.7 mm. However, after mid-July, due to the inactive trough along the West Coast, the commercial capital of India has been receiving very less rains.
Kolkata – As majority of the Monsoon systems form in the Bay of Bengal, they tend to affect Kolkata. However, this year most of the weather systems mainly affected the central and eastern parts of the country. Thus, rains in Kolkata were not that great. But the city still managed to record 1027.6 mm of rains against its normal of 1359.2 mm. Moreover, Kolkata tends to receive most of its rains during the month of September. Looking forward we may see some rise in the rainfall activity for Kolkata.
Chennai – Although Chennai falls in a rain shadow area but still it has outperformed its normal rain throughout the season. So far, the state capital has recorded 358.2 mm against the normal of 434.1 mm. Further in the coming months, we expect more rains for the city as the Northeast Monsoon will mark its onset.
Image Credits – YouTube
Any information taken from here should be attributed to skymet weather.