Jamshedpur, July 25: Rain will continue to pound Jharkhand for the next 24 hours even as the state today wiped out its monsoon deficit tag and clawed its way up to five per cent surplus.

Data recorded so far this monsoon also showed that the state recorded 492.3mm of rain against an average normal of 467.2mm, a 5 per cent surplus.

Weathermen said today that the well-marked low pressure area over Gangetic Bengal and Jharkhand with an associated upper air cyclonic circulation extending upto 9.5km above mean sea level had become stagnant.

These two conditions led to continuous rain throughout the state for the fourth day today, which would extend to the next 24 hours.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) centres in Ranchi and Patna this afternoon issued a special weather bulletin, warning heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places in northern, western and central Jharkhand during the next 24 hours.

These bulletins also attributed the widespread and heavy rainfall on two factors - a monsoon trough located in an ideal position and the persisting well-marked low pressure.

"The axis of monsoon trough today passed through the centre of the well-marked low pressure area over Gangetic Bengal and Jharkhand. The axis is expected to remain like this in the next 24 hours resulting in widespread and heavy rain in Jharkhand," Upendra Srivastava, a senior official at the Ranchi Meteorological Centre, told this reporter.

Keeping in view the prevailing weather condition, the Regional Meteorological Centre at Alipore in Calcutta today extended the heavy rainfall warning in Jharkhand for another 24 hours. "Jharkhand will continue to get widespread rain today and tomorrow. We have also issued a warning of heavy to very heavy rainfall over Jharkhand in the next 24 hours in our afternoon forecast," said a duty officer at the Calcutta-based Met centre.

In the last 24 hours, several districts including East Singhbhum, Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Dhanbad, Bokaro, Latehar, Giridih and Chatra recorded heavy to very heavy rainfall.

In Met parlance, rainfall between 64.5mm and 124.4mm is considered "heavy" while "very heavy rain" means anywhere between 124.5mm and 244.4mm.

This is a far cry from the situation in mid-July.

Due to below-average rainfall in June and first two weeks of July, Jharkhand's deficit at one point of time had touched 38 per cent.

In all, 15 of 24 districts in the state now find place in the list of surplus rains.

They included Bokaro, Deoghar, Dhanbad, Dumka, East Singhbhum, Hazaribagh, Jamtara, Koderma, Lohardaga, Pakur, Ramgarh, Ranchi, Seraikela-Kharsawan, Simdega and West Singhbhum.

Ramgarh topped the gainers list with 81 per cent surplus rainfall followed by East Singhbhum which notched 58 per cent.

Ramgarh has so far scored an impressive rain count of 846.6mm against a normal of 467.2mm. East Singhbhum got 721.2 mm against a normal of 457mm.

However, a couple of pockets in the state were still in the grip of a severe rainfall deficit. Bountiful rain had bypassed Garhwa and Sahebganj where deficits were 69 and 33 per cent respectively.