PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, June 27: Monsoon is playing truant over Jharkhand this year depriving all 24 districts of the requisite rain, resulting in a large deficit which as of today stood at 66 per cent.
Weathermen are keeping their fingers crossed as in the absence of widespread heavy rain it will be difficult to make up for the deficit by the end of June, the first monsoon month.
Statistics revealed that against a normal of 149.8 mm the state has so far received 51.7 mm of rain, a deficit of 66%.
All districts including the capital Ranchi, Bokaro, Deoghar, Dhanbad, East Singhbhum, Garhwa, Dumka, Hazaribagh, Palamu and Sahibganj figure in the rain deficit list due to lack of rainfall.
Notably, the southwest monsoon set in over Jharkhand on June 21, after a delay of six days. Due to the slow movement of monsoon currents, it has so far failed to cover the entire state.
Weathermen said such a situation was seen after a long time.
“We are finding a peculiarity in the weather system as even after monsoon’s onset all the 24 districts are deprived of rain resulting in deficit,” explained a duty officer at IMD’s Ranchi Meteorological Centre.
The Northern Limit of Monsoon continues to pass through Mundra, Mehsana, Udaipur Shivpuri, Lalitpur, Siddhi, Chaibasa, Haldia, Sahibganj and Raxaul.
Satellite picture suggested that a trough stretched between east to west from Southwest Madhya Pradesh to North East Assam was running from Rajasthan to Manipur across Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand at 0.9 km above the mean sea level.
