"Pre-Monsoon Shower": Weather Scientist On Rain In Delhi, Nearby Areas

Delhi and its neighbouring areas witnessed rain on Tuesday afternoon. The showers came as a relief amid weeks of scorching heat. "It was pre-monsoon rain," Dr Naresh Kumar, the India Meteorological Department's senior scientist, told NDTV.

"The temperature dropped rapidly due to the rain," he said.

He said the date for the arrival of monsoon in Delhi-NCR was yet to be announced. The normal date for the monsoon to arrive in Delhi is around June 30. According to IMD data, the monsoon reached Delhi on June 28 last year and on June 26 in 2023.

"Today, monsoon reached West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar," he said. Monsoon rains covered almost the entire western Maharashtra and entered neighbouring Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh on Monday.

He said that, according to the latest forecast, the monsoon may reach areas of northwestern India within the next three to four days.

Dr Kumar said that the monsoon is in an active phase. "The reason is that at present there are two low-pressure areas - one is over Gujarat, the other over West Bengal".

He said this is why the weather office has issued a red alert in Kerala, southern and coastal Karnataka.

India's monsoon revived after stalling for more than a fortnight as a favourable weather system developed in the Bay of Bengal. It would help the monsoon to cover the entire central India this week, an official of the IMD said.

The southwest monsoon reached Kerala on May 24, marking its earliest onset over the Indian mainland since 2009, when it arrived on May 23.

Aided by strong low-pressure systems over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, the monsoon advanced quickly over the next few days, covering parts up to central Maharashtra, including Mumbai, and the entire northeast by May 29.

However, it stalled from May 28-29 until June 10-11 before becoming active again.

The lack of rainfall led to a sharp rise in temperatures, triggering heatwave conditions across large parts of northwestern and central India since June 8-9.

Summer rains usually fall in Kerala around June 1 before spreading nationwide by mid-July, allowing farmers to plant crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans and sugarcane.