An almost spectacular start to the Indian monsoon and Delhi has received heavy rains almost two weeks earlier than expected. Two weeks of the official 4 month monsoon period (about 15%) are over and the welcome rains have covered the entire country around one month ahead of schedule. Over 30% of the total expected rainfall for a “normal” monsoon has already been received. So much so that the new airport in Delhi was flooded yesterday, not so much because of problems at the airport but because the drainage in the surrounding areas could not cope with the flow draining out of the airport and caused a back-flow!
Temperatures have dropped to a “pleasant” 31°C and it augurs well for my trip to Delhi in a couple of weeks.
Expectations for a “good” monsoon and a subsequently high level of agricultural growth are high.
ToI:The monsoon hit Delhi and its neighbourhood on Sunday, two weeks before time — and in a record sweep, swiftly covered all of northwest India.
Besides reaching the capital well before the initially predicted date of June 29, a record occurrence unfolded in a span of 24 hours with the rain bearing system reaching the ends ofnorthwest India a full month before the usual July 15 date. The progress of rains to cover all of India as rapidly as happened over Saturday and Sunday last occurred in 1961.
Delhi recorded 6.1 mm rain till 8.30 am and 45 mm in the next 12 hours. Palam recorded a day’s highest rainfall in the city in two years with 117.8 mm between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm. The showers have been so plentiful that Delhi will see the Yamuna cross the warning level and maybe even touch the danger mark by June 18.
The city’s maximum temperature sharply fell to 31.5 degrees Celsius, eight degrees below normal while the minimum was 23.7 degrees.
From IMD:
monsoon 16 June 2013
The k2p blog 