The Hindu Business Line : A third monsoon `low' in the offing

Under the influence of the fresh system, Northwest India, including Delhi and neighbourhood, is bracing for a good spell of rain for at least three days from Monday. It will pick on the trail of a wet weather left behind by the existing `low' along a west-northwest course, starting from the eastern parts of the country.

Thiruvananthapuram , July 21

East and Central India will continue to have a good monsoon session with a fresh upper air cyclonic circulation predicted over Northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining Gangetic West Bengal.

A forecast by the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting said the circulation is set to form by Monday (July 24), triggering a fresh spell of fairly widespread rain with isolated heavy rains over the Indo-Gangetic plains and Central India over a five-day period.

According to Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Department of Science and Technology, the circulation will descend to lower levels to set up the third monsoon `low'. This will happen in tandem with the existing `low' over Jharkhand and adjoining areas of East Uttar Pradesh and North Chhattisgarh weakeni'ng and gradually becoming unimportant.

According to Dr Gupta, one redeeming feature of the monsoon session over the past two weeks has been the good geographical spread. But he agreed that the quantum of rainfall might have been a tad low, thanks to the minimum realisation from comparatively weaker monsoon `lows' (including land-based ones).

Airing his personal views, he said that from a strictly crop point of view, lesser rainfall distributed comparatively over a wider area is not a bad proposition after all. This is because the run-off will be minimised in such as scenario, while the distributed rain will be just enough to charge the groundwater aquifers.

But viewed from a meteorological angle, the rains may end up as deficient.

This explains latest assessment by India Meteorological Department that area-weighted rainfall for the country as a whole, for the season till July 19, is 14 per cent (the deficit was 10 per cent until the previous week).

This should not unduly worry planners since July is traditionally marked for intense rainfall activity and slight deviation from the trend can send rainfall figures for a toss.

"We need to be aware that we are looking at things from a high July base for monthly rainfall," Dr Gupta added.

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