Finally, monsoon reaches Delhi, covers entire nation

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 13

A day after the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a detailed clarification over its inaccurate forecast on the progress of southwest monsoon to northwest, including Delhi, the seasonal rains finally arrived over the National Capital today, almost 16 days behind the normal date of onset.

The rains also covered entire India, again later than the normal onset date of July 8.

The weather office said, “In association with the continued prevalence of moist easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal, enhanced cloud cover and scattered to fairly widespread rainfall, the monsoon today covered the entire country.”

It said scattered to widespread rainfall is likely over parts of northwest during the next three days, along with isolated to very heavy rainfall over Uttarakhand, Himachal and West UP. The IMD also warned of thunderstorm with lightning over Punjab, Haryana, north Rajasthan, West UP and Bihar in 24 hours.

Facing severe criticism over repeated wrong forecast on monsoon’ arrival over Delhi, the weatherman yesterday called such failure by numerical models in predicting its advance “rare and uncommon”.