Ranchi: The southwest monsoon entered Jharkhand on Saturday from the northeastern districts of Sahibganj and Pakur instead of its usual path, the southeastern district of East Singhbhum, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
In its afternoon bulletin, the IMD said the southwest monsoon has further advanced into some parts of Jharkhand.
“The northern limit of monsoon (NLM) passes through Diu, Surat, Nandubar, Raisen, Damoh, Umaria, Pendra Road, BOlangir, Bhubaneshwar, Baripada, Purulia, Dhanbad in Jharkhand and Darbhanga in Bihar,” the bulletin said, adding that the conditions are favourable for further advance of the southwest monsoon into the remaining parts of Jharkhand during the next 24 hours.
Acting director of IMD Ranchi office, Abhishek Anand, said a low-pressure belt over northwest Bay of Bengal adjoining Odisha and the Gangetic West Bengal coasts is likely to become more marked and move west-northwestwards across Odisha, Jharkhand and north Chhatisgarh during the next two to three days.
“Depending upon the movement of the low-pressure belt, almost the entire state is likely to receive light to moderate rainfall during the next five days,” Anand said.
In its forecast for the next five days, the weather office has also issued alerts for heavy to very heavy rainfall in isolated parts of the state.
“Under the influence of the low-pressure area which is shifting north-northwestwards, widespread rainfall activity along with isolated heavy to very heavy rain is likely over the districts of Jharkhand during next five days,” Anand explained.
Though the monsoon system has hit the northeastern districts comprising Sahebganj and Pakur and was over Dhanbad, other parts of the state also received rainfall under the influence of the monsoon system.
The highest rainfall of 96mm was recorded in Hazaribag, followed by Maithon in Dhanbad with 57.2mm rainfall.
“Ranchi recorded 50.4mm while light rainfall of 3.5mm was witnessed in Daltonganj and 2.2mm in Jamshedpur,” Anand said.
Weather scientist and agromet advisor at the Birsa Agriculture University, Dr A Wadood said the timely arrival of monsoon is a boon for the farmers, who were otherwise financially hit because of the pandemic and the lockdown.
“Jharkhand has received adequate pre-monsoon showers enabling the farmers to prepare their fields.
This time, the state agriculture department was also proactive in the timely distribution of seeds.
As the monsoon has also arrived on time, the farmers have ample time to sow seeds and the coverage is expected to be almost 100% this season,” he said.
Wadood pointed out that timely sowing helps in getting bumper harvests.
Other agriculture experts believe that under conducive conditions, the paddy yield is expected to reach 50 lakh metric tonnes on 18 lakh hectare of land utilised for Kharif cultivation.
Commenting on the extraordinary sickle-shape NLM, Waddod said it was because of the extra curve that the monsoon entered from northeastern districts.
“Though the monsoon seems to be advancing in normal speed, the extra curve indicates that the Arabian Sea component of the monsoon is more active than the Bay of Bengal component of the southwest monsoon,” Wadood said expressing concern that unless the Bay of Bengal component strengthens, rainfall activity over Jharkhand and adjoining places may be subdued later.
“There is no scientific basis for my concern but I have observed over the years that whenever the Arabian Sea component is stronger, monsoon activity gets subdued,” he added.