A rampant monsoon may check into the national capital Delhi within the next two days, or at least two weeks earlier than schedule. On Sunday, it covered a wide swath of East and North-East India and parts of North-West India only next door to Delhi, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The break-neck speed at which the monsoon is expanding coverage over North India has helped it reach North Haryana, Chandigarh, North Punjab, West Uttar Pradesh, most parts of East Uttar Pradesh, entire Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh.
Most of Madhya Pradesh covered
The monsoon has already covered some more parts of Madhya Pradesh on Sunday, and entire Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar. Its northern limit passes through Diu, Surat, Nandurbar , Bhopal, Nowgong, Hamirpur, Barabanki, Bareilly , Saharanpur, Ambala and Amritsar.
The low-pressure area driving the widespread rain still lies half over water and land over North-West Bay of Bengal and adjoining Coastal West Bengal and North Odisha. It has not intensified contrary to forecasts, and may across Odisha, Jharkhand and North Chhattisgarh during next 2-3 days.
A diagonal trough from Central Pakistan runs all the way to the center of the 'low' over the North-West Bay and a second trough runs at an angle from the latter to the East-Central Arabian Sea. This apart, a truncated offshore trough runs from the North Maharashtra coast to the Lakshadweep area.
Network of helpful troughs
Together, they will help bring scattered to widespread rainfall with isolated thunderstorms and lightning over most parts of North-West, Central, East, North-East and South Peninsular India and parts of West India. Isolated heavy to very heavy rain may lash North-West India during the next three days.
Isolated heavy to very heavy rain is also forecast for parts of East, Central and West India during the next next 3-4 days and over parts of North-East India the South Peninsula during next 4-5 days. Isolated extremely heavy rainfall may come back to Konkan and Goa on Monday and Tuesday and over Coastal Karnataka and Madhya Maharashtra on Tuesday.
Extended rainfall outlook
An extended forecast from June 18 to 20 said that widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls may occur most parts of North-East and East India and along the West Coast. Scattered to fairly widespread rainfall is likely over Central and adjoining West and South Peninsular India.
Isolated to scattered rainfall is to be expected over the remaining parts of the country except Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and West Uttar Pradesh where the weather is likely to stay dry. The monsoon is seen losing some steam around this time.