Monsoon to be normal, but may be delayed by a week

New Delhi: Delhiites will have to wait for monsoon as its arrival in the national capital is likely to be delayed by two-three days.

However, the city is expected to receive normal rainfall, said the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Thursday.

Contrary to IMD, Skymet Weather—a private forecaster—claimed that the monsoon may take at least a week longer to reach the city.

On Wednesday, the weather office said that the monsoon was likely to get delayed further and hit Kerala coast only on June 8.

“Normally, monsoon reaches Delhi by June 29. Since there’s a delay in its onset in the southern peninsula, the wind system is likely to take two-three days longer to reach Northwest India,” IMD’s regional weather forecasting chief Kuldeep Srivastava said.

“The good news is that the factors that aid the progress of the monsoon, including the southwesterly winds and the Somali jet stream, are gradually becoming active,” he said.

Northwest India is likely to witness normal rainfall during the monsoon season, Mr Srivastava said.

However, Mahesh Palawat, the senior vice president and meteorologist at Skymet Weather, said: “It’s difficult to say when it will reach Delhi exactly. But it’s expected to get delayed by at least one week.

“After its onset, a low-pressure area is expected to develop over the Arabian Sea and it may intensify into a depression gradually. Whenever any such intense weather system develops over the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea, the moisture laden winds start converging around it, affecting the progress of the monsoon. So, the progress of the monsoon will be sluggish owing to the formation of low-pressure area in the Arabian Sea,” he added.

“The rainfall is expected to remain on the lower side of normal over Delhi. Since it’s a small area, one or two good spells of rains may make up for the deficit. But any surplus rain is ruled out,” Mr Palawat said.

Air quality in Delhi-NCR has improved: Prakash Javadekar

Air quality in Delhi-NCR has improved and the number of days with “bad” air quality has come down by 33 per cent, Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar said on Thursday.

Speaking at an event to mark World Environment Day, which was on June 5, the minister said that the situation “is not as bad” as being portrayed in the media.

“Media reports are always creating a picture that lakhs of people are dying of air pollution but it is not that bad. Yes pollution is there but efforts are on,” Mr Javadekar said. “Number of poor air quality days in Delhi in 2016 used to be 246, and in 2014 they used to be around 300, in 2017 it came down to 213 and now it has come down to 206. I am confident that when 2019 figures will come, the number of poor air quality days will further come down. This is a tremendous success. The days of poor quality air have reduced. It is a significant improvement,” he said.

He also said that the number of days with “moderate to good” air quality has increased from 108 in 2016 to 159 in 2018.