Many parts of the West and East coasts, North-West and North-East India as well as West India witnessed heavy to very rainfall on Monday, which continued to some extent on Tuesday. The intense wet spell was conspicuous by its near-absence over interior peninsula and Central India on Tuesday.
Rain deficit trend
Most of the sea-bound landscape was awash with monsoon moisture sourced both from the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. After successive days of making good the rain deficit, the trend reversed on Tuesday and rose by a percentage-point to 9 per cent on Tuesday. While the large deficit (over -60 per cent) over Marathwada is a concern, its immediate neighbourhood is better only in relative terms.
Heavy to very heavy rain
An India Meteorological Department (IMD) update said heavy to very heavy rainfall was unleashed over the hills of West Bengal and Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Konkan, Goa, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Uttar Pradesh during the 24 hours until Tuesday morning. It was heavy over Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, East Uttar Pradesh, plains of West Bengal, Saurashtra, Kutch, Madhya Maharashtra, Coastal Karnataka and Odisha.
By Tuesday evening, the offshore swung back to normal as it lay extended from South Gujarat to Kerala, representing active monsoon conditions. It had the company of an East-West zone of monsoon turbulence in the higher levels that cut through Hubballi and Bellari in Karnataka and passed to the north of Nellore in Andhra Pradesh. These were joined by a cyclonic circulations to the West over South Gujarat and to the East over West-Central Bay of Bengal and adjoining North Andhra Pradesh coast.
Towards the North, the land-based monsoon trough too was aligned to the most ideal track from Ganganagar in Rajasthan through Delhi, Aligarh, Hamirpur, Prayagraj, Daltonganj and Balasore before dipping into the Central Bay. The productive cyclonic circulation over West-Central Bay was parked in the neighbourhood. Separately, a cyclonic circulation hung over Central Uttar Pradesh.