Rajasthan dries up as rains build over S. India

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects the monsoon trough to shift to normal position on Thursday amid an ongoing bout of frequent north to south oscillations.

What should presumably anchor the eastern end of the trough, at present, is a persisting upper air cyclonic circulation over north-west Bay of Bengal.

RAIN WAVE

The axis of the trough on Wednesday evening had already dipped into east-central Bay, around the normal. The offshore trough along the west coast has also been persisting. This combination is sufficient to fuel a rain wave along the west coast and into east, central and adjoining peninsula for the next three days, the IMD said in its outlook.

But western disturbances over Jammu and Kashmir have exited to the east ruling out the possibility of interactive rains in combination with easterlies from the Bay of Bengal. The main casualty would be west Rajasthan, which is forecast to witness mainly dry conditions through the weekend and into early next.

WEATHER WARNING

A weather warning issued by the IMD and valid for the next two days said that isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall would break out over Orissa, Konkan, Goa, coastal Karnataka, Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. Isolated heavy rainfall has also been forecast over Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, east Madhya Pradesh, north coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala.

Fairly widespread rain or thundershowers would occur over Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, east, central and adjoining peninsular India, the North-eastern States and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Scattered rain or thundershowers would occur over remaining parts of the country except west Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu where it may be isolated. A longer term forecast valid until Monday said that fairly widespread rainfall would occur over many parts of the country except parts of northwest and interior peninsular India where it would be isolated to scattered.

Meanwhile, the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning saw widespread rainfall being reported from the west coast, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Sikkim, coastal Andhra Pradesh, interior Karnataka and Lakshadweep.

OVERNIGHT RAIN

It was fairly widespread over Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Orissa, Assam, Meghalaya, east Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat and Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Mainly scattered rains were reported from Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, west Madhya Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Rayalaseema, Vidarbha and Madhya Maharashtra and isolated over rest parts of the country except west Rajasthan, the IMD said.