The monsoon depression over east Madhya Pradesh held on to its status for just a day before weakening into a well-marked low-pressure area on Thursday.
But the system has already brought heavy to very heavy rainfall over Madhya Pradesh and adjoining East and Central India during the 24 hours up to Thursday morning.
Among the main stations reporting the heaviest rainfall (in cm) are: Satna-28; Damoh-19; Khajuraho-11; Sagar and Golaghat-10 each; Jabalpur-9; Raisen-8; Tikamgarh, Rangia and Bajpe-7 each.
An earlier bulletin from the Met had said that the well-marked ‘low’ may move in a west-southwest direction, which could take into Central and adjoining West Madhya Pradesh, dragging the rains along with it.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts too seemed to predict a similar track with the rains likely entering East and South Gujarat and adjoining Konkan-Mumbai.
In fact, the European centre saw the monsoon holding strong in the region until Monday, following which it may start to weaken.
Weakening phase The weakening of the monsoon is being attributed to the ‘idling phase’ of the Bay of Bengal, which has been active till now, conjuring up rain-driving ‘lows’ and sending them over land.
The North-west Pacific super typhoon (cyclone) Nepartak, located off Taipei and headed for the south-eastern coast of China, may be hastening the slow-down in the Bay.
This is because the super typhoon has been siphoning off monsoon flows from upstream Bay of Bengal to beef up in strength and intensity.
The US Climate Prediction Centre is of the view that the weak monsoon would still be able to sustain moderate rainfall over East India, adjoining Central India and North-west India.
During the week July 13 to 19, Vidarbha, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab and Uttarkhand may receive moderate to occasionally heavy spells of rain.
Break-monsoon? It remains to be seen whether this would lead up to ‘break-monsoon’ conditions in which rains shut themselves out over large parts of the country for a week or longer.
‘Break-monsoon’ is an inevitable phase that the monsoon runs into in July-August after it completes its initial run over the country.
Meanwhile, monsoon coverage of the country was complete except for a small arc representing the contiguous extreme north of Gujarat and extreme south-west Rajasthan.
The expectation is that this area would get covered as the rain driving the well-marked ‘low’ over east Madhya Pradesh pushes in closer over the next couple of days.
As for Friday, the Met has forecast heavy to very heavy rain at isolated paces over Madhya Pradesh; heavy rain at isolated places over Madhya Maharashtra, Vidarbha, Konkan-Goa, coastal Karnataka and Kerala.