NEW DELHI, August 1;The India Meteorological Department on Thursday forecast that rain during the balance two months of the current monsoon season would also by and large remain good though it may not pour as heavily as it has been doing over the past two months.
Announcing this, a press release from IMD said the rainfall for the country as a whole over August and September is likely to be 96 per cent of the long period average [LPA] for the two month period plus or minus model error of eight per cent.
“There is a 43 per cent probability for the rains to be near normal [94-106 per cent of the LPA], 42 per cent probability for it to be below normal [less than 94 per cent of the LPA] and 15 per cent probability for it to be in excess [more than 106 per cent of the LPA’’, a senior IMD official said.
Meanwhile, the first half of the four-month season ended on July 31 with the country as a whole recording an excess of 17 per cent for the period. Nearly half of the total geographical area of the country – 47 per cent to be precise, has recorded excess rain, and 39 per cent normal rain.
The deficit areas are mainly in Bihar, Jharkhand, and the north-east. Rainfall has been 44 per cent below normal in Nagaland-Manipur-Mizoram-Tripura belt, 42 below normal in Arunachal Pradesh, 40 per cent below normal in Assam-Meghalaya region 29 per below normal in Bihar, and 26 per cent below normal in Jharkhand.
In rest of the country, Central India, which comprises of Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, has had the most bountiful rains so far. The region has recorded an excess of 46 per cent over the normal.
It is followed by the southern Peninsula. The region, which comprises of Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, has recorded an excess of 27 per cent.
The north-west region, which covers Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh. Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu and Kashmir, has received a rainfall of 25 per cent above normal.
Speaking to The Hindu, IMD Director General, L.S.Rathore, said there is a distinct possibility for the situation in Bihar, Jharkhand and the north-east to also improve over the next two months.
[In a forecast made in June, IMD had predicted that the north-east was likely to get a seasonal rainfall of 98 per cent plus or minus eight per cent].
Ruling out any modification in this forecast, he said the IMD also stuck to its forecast that rainfall for the country as a whole and the season in its entirety was likely to be 98 per cent plus or minus four per cent.
