Southwest monsoon made a decent recovery in the last week of June. Courtesy low pressure area in Bay of Bengal (BoB), which later meandered as a weak system over Madhya Pradesh resulted widespread heavy rains over Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Konkan and Rajasthan. Low pressure expedited the advancement of monsoon as well, to cover most parts of North and West India, before time. Shortly, it will reach the last posts of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan ahead of its schedule of 08thJuly.
Monsoon deficit had earlier mounted to 55% during first half of the month. Firstly, delayed arrival, followed by sluggish pace and stagnation left most parts dry, till cyclone Biparjoy battered Gujarat and Rajasthan. Later, low pressure of BoB carried the baton further. However, the rainfall distribution still remain far below the desired levels which raises worries for the agriculture operations over down south and central parts. Skewed and reversed spatial distribution has done more damage than the benefit for the opening session of Kharif crop.
In the first phase, monsoon travels from south to north, across Peninsular India, Maharashtra and Northeast India. Monsoon stream moves from east to west in the 2nd phase covering eastern parts and Indo Gangetic plains. However, the southern parts, some eastern states and central parts are reeling with large deficiencies, despite major recovery over the western and northern parts. Month of June has closed with a Pan-India deficit of 10% rainfall. Still, large number of states are struggling with enormous shortfall.
Despite heavy rains over Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, central India has a shortfall of about 10% in June. This includes core zone of Maharashtra, largely rainfed by monsoon. All the three hinterland sub divisions of Maharashtra, namely Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada , Vidarbha have remained highly deficit with respective shortfall of 58%, 68% and 48% rainfall till 29thJune. These deficiencies will increase further as the rainfall remained sub par on the last day of the month. States of South India have large deficiencies : Telangana-49%, Karnataka- 54%, Kerala-60% and Andhra Pradesh-30%. State of Bihar, Jharkhand and East Uttar Pradesh have a shortfall of 69%, 47% and 58% respectively.
Low pressure area has now weakened and moved away from northwest Madhya Pradesh. It is likely to move along the foothills as a cyclonic circulation. Active monsoon conditions will prevail across Indo Gangetic plains over the next 2 days. However, overall monsoon activity will shrink over the country during the next 4 days.