The southwest monsoon has finally covered the entire country today on July 13, including the national capital Delhi where the arrival of monsoon was delayed by over two weeks.
This has brought much relief from the peak summer heat and is expected to boost the kharif sowing that was lagging because the monsoon was in a hiatus since June 19 last month.
“In association with the continued prevalence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal in the lower levels since past 4 days, enhanced cloud cover and scattered to fairly widespread rainfall, the southwest monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of the country including Delhi, remaining parts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan,” the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in its press statement issued today. “Thus, the Southwest Monsoon has covered entire country on 13th July, against the normal date of 08th July,” it added.
Also Read: Delayed monsoon, deficient rainfall affects kharif sowing
As per the met department, the normal date for the monsoon to cover the entire country is July 8. This year there has been a delay of five days.
It went on to note that “the monsoon advanced over Delhi, thus occurred on 13th July against the normal date of 27th June.” This is the first time in almost two decades (19 years) that the monsoon arrival in Delhi has been delayed by a margin of 15 days.
Also Read: Late by 16 days, most delayed in 19 years — much awaited monsoon finally arrives in Delhi
Acknowledging its failure to correctly forecast the date of arrival of monsoon in Delhi, the IMD said in its press released last evening (July 12): “Such type of failure by numerical models in prediction of monsoon advance over Delhi is rare and uncommon. It is needless to mention that IMD has predicted well with high accuracy about the advance of monsoon over Delhi quite accurately in the recent past years and also the advance of monsoon over different parts of the country during the monsoon-2021 accurately about four to five days ahead.”
Delayed arrival of monsoon in Delhi had already triggered water crisis in the national capital. Political blame game has also kicked off as the metropolis is facing water shortage and several colonies are being supplied water through water tankers.
Also Read: Delhi’s thirsty vigil continues as monsoon is delayed; political blame game kicks off too
Monsoon advance dates 1960-2020
According to IMD’s historical dates of advance of the southwest monsoon over India from 1960 to 2020, apart from this year, 26 times in the past 60 years, the monsoon has covered the entire country later than its normal date of July 8.
In 2002, the monsoon was most delayed in covering entire India when rather than July 8, it covered the country as late as August 15. Similarly, in 1987 and 1986, the monsoon covered the entire country as late as July 27 and July 24, respectively.
In the past two days, as monsoon has picked up pace, heavy rainfall has been recorded in several states leading to flash floods. These include Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
