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A routine occurrence, heavy rain will be confined to the foothills of the Himalayas
The southwest monsoon, which has seen a vigorous phase over parts of central India, the western coast and eastern India, will likely take a break after July 15, private weather agency Skymet Weather said.
“… The country is now heading towards break-monsoon conditions… Monsoon goes weak over most parts of the country and heavy rains are only confined to the foothills of Himalayas, right from Uttarakhand to northeast India. This is exactly how conditions will be, July 15 onward,” Jatin Singh, Managing Director, Skymet, said in a company blog post on Tuesday. The break, which is a routine occurrence during the monsoon in July, will be triggered as a low-pressure system hovering over Uttar Pradesh and adjoining Madhya Pradesh starts to fade away, resulting in a drastic decrease in the rains over the central parts of the country. Moreover, a trough now passing through the Indo-Gangetic plains would also shift north towards the foothills of the Himalayas, leading to increased rain. July rains have so far been much better than the rains in June, which saw a deficit of nearly 33%. As of July 8, the overall monsoon shortfall (June 1-July 8) has fallen to 19%. In central India, a key region given the quantity of kharif crop sown, the deficit has fallen to 2%. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on its part hasn’t warned of a break but warns of a forthcoming lull. “Widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls likely over Western Himalayan Region, foothills of the Himalayas and northeastern states… scattered to fairly widespread rainfall likely along the West coast and isolated to scattered rainfall over rest of the country,” its outlook on the evening of July 8 noted.
July critical
July rainfall is critical to the fate of the monsoon. The IMD says that it is sticking to its May forecast that rainfall for the month will be 5% less than usual.
