The southwest monsoon made an early show over Kerala this season. Simultaneously, it covered complete Northeast India in one go, a very uncommon scenario to come across. However, the progress of the monsoon has been jumbled, right from the word ‘go’. After making incremental but timely progress along the West Coast, it reached Mumbai ahead of schedule and a ‘break’ thereafter. The eastern arm of the stream has come across the worst performance of recent times and has not budged at all.
The Arabian Sea branch is stuck at Navsari on the West Coast for the last about 10 days. The eastern arm from the Bay of Bengal is still worse and is stagnant for the last about 20 days. Under normal conditions, the southwest monsoon covers West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh around this time of the month and enters Uttar Pradesh on 20th June. On the western side, the monsoon reaches Ahmedabad by about 20th June and covers half of Saurashtra and central Gujarat. By 25th June, the stream sways the entire Saurashtra, covering Rajkot and Jamnagar and swath the whole of North Gujarat, leaving only the Kutch region where, as a routine, the progress is at a slow pace.
Conditions are becoming favourable for the advancement of monsoon over the eastern states of the country and proceed beyond in the next 3-4 days. On 23rd June, a trough is forming and running across West Uttar Pradesh to East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and North Bengal. It is likely to get consolidated the next day and will have an embedded cyclonic circulation over East Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. It will be strengthened further and a tight circulation will be marked over central parts of Uttar Pradesh on 25th June.
The southwest monsoon is likely to advance over West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and East Uttar Pradesh by 24th -25th June. The intensity and spread of monsoon rains will increase on the 25th and 26th of June. This feature will carry the monsoon current quickly over Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Rajasthan, a little ahead of time. Monsoon progress on the western side may remain slow and sluggish. The state of Gujarat will witness the true colour of the monsoon in the fag end of the month, between 26th and 29th June. Overall, it could be a repeat of last year, when the monsoon covered the entire country, ahead of its schedule.
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