Sixty percent of Madhya Pradesh’s monsoon clouds have vanished. No heavy rain is expected anywhere in the state for five days. Relief may come July 16, when a new weather system is set to activate, the India Meteorological Department said Monday.
Twenty-two districts, including Rewa, Shahdol, Mandla and Betul, will see only clouds and light drizzle Monday. Thirty-two others, including Bhopal, Indore and Gwalior, stay dry.
“The activity of the southwest monsoon in the state is currently decreasing,” said Shailendra Kumar Naik, a weather expert at the Meteorological Center Bhopal. “There has been no heavy or very heavy rain anywhere in the state for the last four to five days.”
The systems that normally drive monsoon rain have weakened or drifted away from the state, Naik said. A cyclonic circulation forming over the northern Bay of Bengal between July 13 and 19 could change that. If it deepens into a low-pressure system, heavy rain returns. The IMD is also watching three systems building in the Pacific; one reaching the Bay of Bengal could reactivate the monsoon statewide.
The numbers show the slowdown. Madhya Pradesh’s rainfall surplus has collapsed from 30% above normal to just 1%, after adding only a single point over the weekend. The state has logged 241.8 mm this season against a normal of 239.8 mm — just 25% of the season’s expected total.
Rainfall stays uneven on the ground. Dewas leads the state with 18 inches, 102% above normal. Indore and Sehore have logged 14 inches each; Bhopal has 13.1 inches. Alirajpur trails every district, at 2.5 inches, 74% below normal.
Jabalpur, Sagar, Rewa and Shivpuri also run below normal. Bhopal, Indore, Guna and Gwalior run ahead.
July normally carries the state’s monsoon. Bhopal alone expects 14 of its 39-inch seasonal average this month. Until July 16, though, Madhya Pradesh watches a dry sky and waits.
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