Extreme heavy rain lifts from parts of North-West, may break out afresh elsewhere
The extremely heavy rain appears to have eased over Uttarakhand and bordering Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh on Tuesday, but is expected to rain again over the rest of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, northeastern India and Sikkim, and finally for a few more days.
Heavy rain
This came after a day of very heavy rains hit Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Chandigarh and western Uttar Pradesh, which led to massive floods and landslides on Monday. Heavy rains swept across Punjab, Haryana, eastern Rajasthan, Gujarat, Meghalaya and the hills of West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar and Telangana. It was heavy over Delhi, western Rajasthan, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh coast, Tamil Nadu and Konkan.
New activity over the bay
The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday that normal rainfall will unfold over the country over the next three days, except for the plains of West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha, where it is likely to be below normal. The brief lull will be broken by new activity over the Bay of Bengal, as monsoon flows are expected to converge over the Bay of Head (off the coast of West Bengal and Bangladesh) during this period.
Numerical model predictions by IMD as well as global models indicate the formation of a low (even low) pressure zone over the Cape Bay that will hang there for a while. It will anchor the flows and drive the monsoons over eastern India, central India and northwest India.
Western disturbances at work
On Tuesday, the critical monsoon trough that, along with visiting westerly disturbances, has caused some of the worst floods seen in northern India, remained active with its western end to the south of its normal location. Its eastern end is on land to the north of its normal location, but is compensated by the heavily gifted western end which has hosted two hurricane cycles.
Of these, one was located over northeastern Rajasthan while the other was parked over Haryana. The western disturbance lay in a basin over eastern Pakistan, and it was able to sway frantic monsoon activity from its perch to that side of the border where it encountered the eastern monsoon from the Bay of Bengal. The forecast for northwest India for the next five days is fairly broad to widespread rain with heavy to very heavy precipitation over Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh over the next two days and isolated heavy rains thereafter. Isolated heavy rains are also likely over eastern Rajasthan over the next five days.
Heavy rains to the east and northeast
Another area of major rain activity is east and adjacent to northeastern India, where light to moderate rain with heavy to very heavy rains is expected in the hills of West Bengal, Sikkim, Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Bihar for the next three days and isolated heavy rainfall after that. Scattered heavy rains are likely over Odisha on Friday and Saturday and over Jharkhand from Wednesday to Friday. Isolated heavy rains are likely in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal Hills and Sikkim on Wednesday.