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A senior official of the Ministry of Earth Sciences said on Friday that after entering Kerala coast on Sunday, the progress of Southwest Monsoon has been slow and is expected to pick up pace from June 17.
“The current pace of progress of monsoon is slow, but between June 17-23, there is a possibility of heavy rainfall over large parts of the country,” M Ravichandran, secretary, ministry of earth sciences, told FE. He said that a few weeks of slow progress of monsoon is quite natural and the country is expected to receive ‘normal’ rains during the monsoon months (June-September).
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday said that the southwest monsoon has covered entire north-eastern states and parts of sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim and predicted intense rain activities in these areas. .
The IMD has predicted widespread light to moderate rainfall with thunder and lightning over Coastal Karnataka, South Interior Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep and scattered rain over Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, North Interior Karnataka and Tamil Nadu during the next five days.
It also said that heatwave conditions would continue over isolated parts of Northwest and Central India for the next three days.
On Tuesday, the Meteorological Department said monsoon rainfall this year would be higher than its forecast in April, at 103 per cent of the benchmark long-period average, with 81 per cent of rainfall either “normal” or above. The agency said the rainfall caused by the annual event would be spatially well distributed over four broad regions and across much of the country.
In its forecast for June, the Meteorological Department has predicted ‘normal rainfall in the range of 92-108% of the LPA’.
If the forecast goes well, India will see normal monsoon rains for the fourth year in a row. The major kharif crops are paddy, moong, tur, soybean and coarse cereals.
Meanwhile, the average water level in 140 major reservoirs of the country is currently rising by 7% annually, the Central Water Commission (CWC) has said. The water level is also 33% higher than the average of the last 10 years.
However, the reservoir water levels in the eastern and western regions are down by about 26% and 9% respectively from the year-ago period. Officials said the water level in the reservoirs is likely to rise in the coming months with the progress of monsoon.
The reservoirs currently hold 54.27 billion cubic meters (BCM) of water, which is about 31% of their combined capacity. As per the latest CWC note, 50.74 BCM was available in these reservoirs a year ago, while the average of the last 10 years is 40.82 BCM.
“The present water level of the reservoirs was 107 per cent of the storage of corresponding period of last year and 133 per cent of the average storage of last 10 years,” the commission said.
In terms of regional variations, 25 reservoirs in the central region (Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) and 39 reservoirs in the southern region (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu) have more water than last year and Average of last 10 years.
However, water levels in 21 reservoirs in the eastern region (Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Tripura, Nagaland and Bihar) are currently below the average of a year ago and last 10 years. The water level in 46 reservoirs in the western region (Gujarat and Maharashtra) is presently lower than the corresponding period last year, but higher than the average storage of the last decade.
Nine reservoirs in the northern region (Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Rajasthan) currently have more water than last year, but less than the last 10-year average.
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