Monsoon 2015 finally arrived over Kerala on June 5, a little behind schedule. The Northern Limit of Monsoon (NLM) quickly covered entire Northeast India by the next day.
The progress of Monsoon takes place under the influence of two branches – the western arm and the eastern arm of the Monsoon line. By June 12, the western arm covered Mumbai, while the eastern arm just reached Northeast India. The western arm touched some parts of Gujarat and Saurashtra by June 14 and remained stagnant thereafter. Southwest Monsoon progressed satisfactorily till June 14. On the other hand the eastern arm remained over Gangtok from June 6 to 12.
As of now the NLM continues to pass through latitude 21.0°N / Longitude 60.0°E, Veraval, Surat, Ujjain, Narsinghpur, Raipur, Kalingapatnam, Latitude 20.0°N / Longitude 88.0°E, Krishnanagar and Darjeeling.
By now the NLM should have covered entire Gujarat, except for Kutch, most parts of Madhya Pradesh, entire Bihar and central parts of Uttar Pradesh. However, we can say that conditions are favourable for further advance of Southwest Monsoon into some more parts of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, remaining parts of Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Bay of Bengal during next 2 to 3 days.
Factually, the pace of Monsoon is not same always but, this year it has been rather sluggish. First of all, the cyclonic storm Ashobaa delayed the pace of Monsoon. The system took away all the moisture and rain reduced over Peninsular India.
Going by the present scenario, we can say that the low pressure area over Bay of Bengal will intensify and become more marked. Weather models suggest that the system could move inland and bring heavy showers over north Andhra Pradesh and south Odisha. It can recurve and reach the northeastern parts of the country. Thereafter, the eastern arm of Monsoon will get activated and cover entire West Bengal, Odisha, large portions of Bihar, Jharkhand and could even touch Uttar Pradesh.
Image credit- wsj.com
