Source : INDIA TODAY NEWS
A single rain gauge in the eastern hills could brim past 200 millimetres this Sunday. On the northern plains, a thermometer could climb past 40 degrees Celsius the same afternoon. Both readings will belong to the same country, on the same day.
That gap between flood and furnace is the whole story of India’s weather on Sunday, June 21, and the culprit is a monsoon that has lost its nerve.
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The southwest monsoon, the seasonal wind system that delivers about three-quarters of India’s yearly rainfall, swept into the south and then stalled.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) says the country is already 46 per cent short of rain for June. Here is how Sunday unfolds, region by region.
WHERE THE SKY OPENS UP
The heaviest weather belongs to the northeast.
The IMD has warned of extremely heavy rainfall, or more than 204.4 millimetres in a single day, over the sub-Himalayan belt through June 21.
The wider northeast can expect near-continuous downpours.
On steep ground, that volume of water lubricates the soil until slopes give way, which is why the IMD has flagged landslides and flash floods.
WHY THE SOUTH CANNOT DRY OUT
The southern peninsula and the west coast stay soaked, and the reason is the land itself.
Moisture-heavy winds sweep in off the Arabian Sea and slam into the Western Ghats, the long mountain wall that runs down the coast.
With nowhere to go but up, the air rises, cools, and wrings itself out as rain.
Scientists call this orographic rainfall, from the Greek for mountain. The Ghats are, in effect, a rain factory.
THE PLAINS ON THE BOIL
Inland, the mood flips entirely.
The IMD expects heatwave conditions in isolated pockets across the east and the southern interior on Sunday, with the northern and central plains staying uncomfortable for days yet.
A heatwave is not just a hot day.
It is officially declared when the maximum temperature crosses 40 degrees Celsius on the plains and sits well above the seasonal average.
A GRITTY AFTERNOON IN THE NORTHWEST
The northwest, capital included, gets the day’s oddest weather.
Expect a hazy sky and a likely burst of dust and thunder by late afternoon, with winds gusting to 60 kilometres per hour.
The trigger is a Western Disturbance, a rain-bearing system that travels in from the Mediterranean on fast, high-altitude winds, the same family of storms that feeds north India’s winter rain.
It should cap the maximum near 38 degrees Celsius, just shy of the heat further east.
THE TURN IS COMING
There is light at the end of this dry spell. The IMD says the atmosphere is finally lining up for the monsoon to push ahead around June 23, into central and eastern India and parts of the west.
Until that switch flips, Sunday stays a study in contrasts, drenched at the edges, baking in the middle.
– Ends
SOURCE :- TIMES OF INDIA
