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A clear sky over Subernarekha in Jamshedpur on Monday. Picture by Bhola Prasad
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Get ready to up your style quotient this Durga Puja. The rain god has decided not to play spoilsport.
After overstaying in Jharkhand for a week, monsoon finally bade farewell on Monday, after a last lap largesse that unofficially reduced the deficit to 10 per cent. It has also left behind a nip in the evening air.
In a special bulletin, the Patna Meteorological Office declared the retreat of the rains in the evening. “The south-west monsoon trough completely withdrew from Jharkhand today. We were expecting an early exit this year, but presence of heavy moisture in the atmosphere owing to two low-pressure troughs delayed it by about a week,” said director Ashish Kumar Sen.
Last year, the four-month season had ended in Jharkhand on October 13 after a late arrival. This time, it came on June 19, a delay of five days.
The normal timeframe for withdrawal of the south-west monsoon from the state is between October 7 and 10. Sometimes, the trough stays on till the last week of October. Had the rain god been that stubborn this time, the excitement of Durga Puja, which will begin on Saturday, would have drowned in downpour.
Going by the book, rainfall after September 30 is not considered a part of monsoon calculations in India, even though the trough does not leave the entire country by then. Weathermen said the idea was to maintain a uniform pattern in arriving at the rain count for each region.
However, if the showers till Monday is taken into account, Jharkhand stands with a 10 per cent deficit. From June 19, the state received an actual rain of 955mm against an average normal of 1,058mm.
District-wise figures show that Gumla tops the list of surplus rain with 16 per cent. It is followed by Pakur with 16 per cent and East Singhbhum with 3 per cent.
The deficit districts include Hazaribagh (32 per cent), Deoghar and West Singhbhum (29 per cent), Lohardaga and Chatra (26 per cent), Koderma (25 per cent), Garhwa and Godda (23 per cent), Ranchi (10 per cent), Bokaro (10 per cent) and Dhanbad (6 per cent).
With the monsoon waving goodbye, the weather is showing signs of change. Over the past two days, both maximum and minimum temperatures have been dipping.
“Dry westerly winds will dominate the state for the next few days before the north-westerly flow sets in. Mornings and evenings will be pleasant and one will feel the nip in the air,” said a senior meteorologist in Patna.
The Regional Meteorological Centre at Alipore, Calcutta, too declared the exit of monsoon from Jharkhand. “The weather will now remain dry,” said a duty officer.
The Met office ruled out cyclonic circulations or depressions over the Bay of Bengal in the next four to five days. “We find no such signs in today’s chart analysis,” the Alipore official added.
The night readings have dropped by 2-3 degree Celsius in places like Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Daltonganj, Hazaribagh and Koderma in the last 24 hours. Ranchi, for the second consecutive day, recorded a minimum of 17°C. The temperature is two degrees below the average normal. The local weather office in Jamshedpur recorded a minimum of 20°C on Monday, a degree below the average normal.
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