Monsoon in Chandigarh by June 26; excess in Punjab, short in Himachal in April

Vijay Mohan
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, April 29

While rains during, the month of, April were above normal in the agrarian states of Punjab and Haryana, it was below par in the hill state of Himachal Pradesh.

Rainfall in Punjab was 32 per cent above the long period average and seven per cent above in Haryana, but 11 per cent below the long period average in Himachal Pradesh, according to data compiled by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) for the period April 1 to April 28.

Punjab received 16.8 mm rain during this period as compared to the long period average of 12.7 mm.

Haryana received 7.7 mm against the norm of 7.2 mm while Himachal received 54.6 mm against the 61.3 mm.

While northern and eastern parts of Punjab received good rains during April, the south-western parts were relatively drier.

Bathinda was the only district in the state that did not receive any rainfall during this period, IMD data shows.

Other districts that have been hit hard including Barnala and Mukutsar, where the shortfall was 84 per cent and 81 per cent respectively.

Sangrur, Moga, Ferozepur, and Faridkot are other districts where the shortfall ranged between 14 per cent to 54 per cent.

Kapurthala and Patiala were the wettest districts, with the rains being as much as 403 per cent and 231 per cent above the long period average, followed by Fatehgarh Sahib and Ropar, where the surplus was 163 per cent and 114 per cent respectively.

Tarn Taran, Amritsar and Mohali were other districts receiving significant surplus ranging between 96 to 102 per cent.

Only nine districts in Haryana received rain above the long period average, with the central part of the state being deficient.

Bhiwani, Panipat, Hisar and Jind were the driest in the state with the shortfall ranging from 60 per cent to 81 per cent.

Ambala remained the wettest in April, with the surplus being 237 per cent. In Kaithal, Karnal and Rewari, rains were 118 per cent to 153 per cent above normal.

Barring two districts, rains in Himachal Pradesh remained above the long period average.

The upper regions of the state comprising Lahaul and Spiti and Kinnaur were highly deficient, with the shortfall being 58 per cent and 51 per cent respectively. Sirmour, Solan and Mandi were the wettest with a surplus of up to 100 per cent.

Above-average rain in Punjab and Haryana comes in the backdrop of IMD predicting normal monsoon this year ranging between 96 to 104 per cent of the long-period average.

Based on the data from 1961 to 2019, IMD has designed new objective criteria for defining monsoon onset over the entire country.

According to the new forecast model, the monsoon onset date for Chandigarh has been revised to June 26 instead of July 1.

For Jalandhar in Punjab, the date has been revised to June 28 from July 13 while for Bhiwani in Haryana it is now July 3 instead of July 6.

For Shimla in Himachal Pradesh, the onset is delayed by a day to June 24 from June 23.

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