The southwest monsoon has reached western Rajasthan’s Barmer, one of its last outposts, two weeks ahead of its usual arrival date. But, it is still eluding north India, including Delhi which is reeling under heat wave-like conditions.
The weather department said on June 29 that the northern limit of southwest monsoon (NLM) continued to pass through Barmer, Bhilwara, Dholpur, Aligarh, Meerut, Ambala and Amritsar.
After arriving two days late in Kerala, the monsoon raced across the country, covering eastern, central and adjoining northwest India 7-10 days earlier than normal. It has even covered parts of north India, including Rajasthan's Barmer – a border district and mainly desert area – but parts of west Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana are yet to receive rainfall, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
News agency PTI quoted Kuldeep Srivastava, head of the IMD's regional forecasting centre, as saying that Barmer is among the few stations in western Rajasthan that are usually covered by the southwest monsoon in last.
Southwest monsoon reaches west Rajasthan by the first week of July. However, it has covered Barmer two weeks before its normal schedule, IMD's Director General Mrutunjay Mohapatra was quoted as saying by the news agency.
Westerly winds blocking easterlies
The easterlies bring monsoon to the Delhi-National Capital Region (NCR), Haryana, parts of Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh and western Rajasthan from the Bay of Bengal.
“But there has been no active system currently in the Bay of Bengal that could help the easterlies to bring monsoon over this region,” Mohapatra told PTI.
However, westerly winds have been blocking its advance into the national capital and parts of north India.
Earlier, the IMD forecast that the wind system might reach Delhi by June 15.
Normally, the monsoon reaches Delhi by June 27 and covers the entire country by July 8.
The southwest monsoon reaches western Rajasthan by the first week of July. The region is also its last outpost in the country to cover. It reaches northwest Rajasthan late and also withdraws from there early. The southwest monsoon made an onset over Kerala on June 3, two days after its normal date. But then it made rapid progress covering many parts of east, west, south, and central India before the normal date.
(With inputs from PTI)
