Subdued rainfall is indicated for most of Peninsular India for the next three to four days even as the India Met Department (IMD) has forecast a fresh low-pressure area over North Bay of Bengal in as many days.

During this period, North and North-East India will receive widespread to fairly-widespread rainfall, with isolated heavy spells, due to changes in the alignment of the monsoon trough over North India.

Next ‘low’ soon

The ‘low’ is expected to form far too North in the Bay and could bring back rains to the West Coast and parts of Central India along with the plains in the North, East and North-East India from August 28.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts too has indicated the possibility of North, East and North-East India receiving widespread rainfall over the next 5-10 days.

However, the monsoon may stay quiet over most of Peninsular India during this period. But parts of the West Coast — from South Gujarat to coastal Karnataka — may witness varying rainfall. It would be isolated to moderate over Kerala.

This would mean that the rainfall deficit over Rayalaseema (-42 per cent); North Interior Karnataka (-21 per cent); and Lakshadweep (-44 per cent) may continue. A similar outlook is valid for Saurashtra and Kutch (-21 per cent).

In the East, Bihar (-22 per cent) and Jharkhand (-28 per cent) as well as the adjoining North-East could still look out for rains from the emerging weather locally. Similarly for Haryana, Chandigarh, and Delhi (-23 per cent).

More rain expected?

The rain deficit for the country as a whole is 7 per cent as on Thursday. An outlook from the ensemble model of the US National Weather Services indicates that the country may witness active spells of the monsoon, even in September.

Normally, the monsoon starts to retreat from the North-West (Rajasthan) from the first of September, the last active monsoon month, but the US model forecasts suggest otherwise. It sees at least two more low-pressure areas springing up over the North/North-West Bay in the first week of September, with the second one being apparently strong enough to stop the retreating monsoon over North-West India.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, the IMD said fairly widespread to widespread, with isolated heavy rainfall, would lash North India and North-East India during the next four days due to a specific set of synoptic features. Rainfall is also likely to increase over parts of East India on Saturday onwards due to the likely formation of the ‘low’ over the North Bay a day later.

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