Monsoons Reach Andamans; Heat Waves Persist in Central India

The pre-monsoon showers marked its onset in over Andaman and Nicobar Islands yesterday, making a timely arrival at the south Andaman sea late Saturday. The onset was declared with the strengthening and deepening of cross-equatorial monsoon flows over the Andaman Sea.

Widespread rainfall has occurred over the Nicobar Islands during the last two days. There has been enhanced cloudiness and rainfall in association with a persisting cyclonic circulation over the past couple of days.

The IMD (Indian Meteorological Department) has forecast light to moderate rainfall at most places over the Nicobar Islands with heavy rainfall at isolated on Saturday and Sunday and light to moderate rainfall at many places from Monday to Wednesday.

The timely onset of the monsoon over the extreme South-East Bay does not necessarily be replicated over the mainland (Kerala coast) nor indicate its orderly performance during the June-September rain season.

Although there is time for Monsoon to mark its arrival over the north-eastern states but still pre-Monsoon weather activities are picking up pace in the region. In fact, since the beginning of this month, on and off scattered rain and thundershowers with varied intensities are going on over Northeast India.

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According to Skymet Weather, in the last 24 hours also, pre-Monsoon rains occurred in parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. These rains pre-Monsoon weather activities over the north-eastern states are associated with the flow of south/south-westerly winds from the Bay of Bengal.

Skymet Weather further adds, “Without the presence of any significant weather system over the region, rain and thundershowers of varied intensity will continue in parts of Northeast India. However, currently, a cyclonic circulation is seen over Bihar, which will help in enhancing the rains over the northeastern states.”

Heat waves in Central India

Heatwave conditions have so far persisted in isolated pockets of Vidarbha and North Interior Karnataka. The weather agency Skymet further added that Heatwave will persist over Vidarbha, North Interior Karnataka and South Chhattisgarh.

Failure of pre-monsoon showers have worried the Mangalore district over the water crisis. District in-charge Minister U T Khader said that the failure of pre-monsoon shower has aggravated the water crisis in the district. Speaking to reporters on Sunday he said, “The government is monitoring the water crisis. After the meeting, more funds will be sought to tackle the crisis. On mitigating the crisis, a series of check dams will be built under the Paschima Vahini project at about Rs 200 crore. All the work on check dams are in tender stage. Once the bridge cum barrage between Harekala – Adyara is completed, the storage capacity will improve.”

Khader added that the current water rationing system will make the water from Thumbe vented dam sufficient till June 6. The rationing in the month of April has helped the Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) manage the crisis. The MCC is using 20 tankers for areas facing shortage and will use five more tankers for supply. It has cleaned and repaired 14 open wells. The authorities have let 15 borewells be sunk. Six borewells that are sunk had about four inches of water, he informed.