The southwest monsoon forayed into Bihar through the north-eastern districts on Friday, bringing smiles on the faces of tillers hoping for timely kharif (monsoon) crop cultivation and residents reeling from sultry conditions.
The Patna meteorological centre officially declared the arrival of monsoon in the state in the afternoon, categorising it as "marginal" delay (see chart). The normal date for entry of rain-bearing clouds is June 10 and the Met office considers a margin of one to seven days for categorising the onset as "marginally- delayed".
Monsoon clouds covered Araria, Kishanganj and eastern parts of Supaul, Katihar and Purnea districts on Friday. Places in central Bihar, including Patna and Samastipur, also saw showers in the evening but the Met officials attributed it to pre-monsoon activity.
Patna meteorological centre director Ashish Sen told The Telegraph that the monsoon was expected to cover the entire state in four days. "The southwest monsoon entered Bihar through north-eastern parts today (Friday) and we are expecting it to cover the entire state over the next four days," said Sen.
The evening bulletin of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday stated that the northern limit of monsoon (NLM) - an imaginary line drawn on the map by meteorologists to mark till where they deem the wind - was passing through Karwar (Karnataka), Gadag (Karnataka), Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh), Kalingapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Cuttack (Odisha), Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) and Forbesganj (Bihar).
The weather bulletin further stated that Bihar was expected to receive scattered to fairly widespread rainfall till Tuesday.
The southwest monsoon arrived over the Indian mainland through Kerala on June 8 but it remained stuck over the north Bay of Bengal for a few days before reaching the Northeast on June 14. It advanced till Gangtok by last Wednesday but it did not show further progress on Thursday. On Friday, the onset of rain-bearing winds was declared in Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Calcutta. Weathermen at the local Met office had initially predicted the onset of monsoon in Bihar around June 18.
Tillers in Bihar were delighted by the entry of monsoon rain in the state.
Sudhanshu Kumar, a farmer based in Samastipur, said: "It is the right time for monsoon in the state, as farmers have already started planting kharif paddy seedlings in the nurseries and transplantation process would start from the last week of June. Bihar has been receiving deficient monsoon rainfall for the past four years. Thus, we expect good rainfall this year,"
Kharif season starts from the arrival of southwest monsoon and ends in September. Sowing of paddy seedlings in this season starts mostly from early June followed by transplantation from early-July to mid-August.
In its first long-range forecast issued on April 12, IMD had predicted above normal rainfall - 106 per cent of the long period average - in monsoon this year but an IMD report by the Pune meteorological centre in the third of week of May stated that the eastern region of the country would get comparatively less rainfall and the deficiency in Bihar would be around 10 per cent. Normal monsoon rainfall in Bihar over June, July, August and September is 1024mm.
