LUCKNOW: The city may have an early date with the monsoon — as early as Friday-Saturday, 10 days before the scheduled date of June 20.
Pre-monsoon thundershowers are expected on Thursday, followed by light to moderate rainfall on Friday and Saturday, the weather office has predicted.
Widespread heavy rains may occur on Sunday, though rainfall activity would decline on Monday and Tuesday.
Last year too, the monsoon had arrived five days early in UP, but thereafter lost steam and was delayed in the city by four days.
However, Met officials said, this time there are a couple of weather systems that are pushing monsoon currents at a faster pace.
“Monsoon is expected to arrive in UP by Friday-Saturday and cover the entire east UP upto Lucknow within a day.
It will then expand to west UP, which means the entire state will get monsoon rains by Sunday,” said state Met director JP Gupta.
The reason for the rapid advancement is the formation of a trough — a stream of small cyclonic circulations — which is running from over southeast UP to Bay of Bengal across Jharkhand and Gangetic West Bengal.
Extra push will be provided by a low pressure area that is expected to generate over the Bay of Bengal on Friday, he added.
Prior and during the onset of monsoon, intense thunderstorm, lightning and gusty winds measuring between 30-50 km per hour are expected in east UP.
Rainfall can be heavy at isolated places, said the met director.
By Tuesday, monsoon had advanced into Maharashtra, some parts of south Gujarat, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, he added.
The impact of the changing conditions was visible in the city on Wednesday.
Cloudy sky and strong winds kept maximum temperatures four degrees below normal at 35.6 degrees Celsius.