Monsoon activity to pick up again from August 26 onwards

Telangana experiencing light showers, monsoon activity expected to pick up by end of August, temperatures rising.

The twin cities and few other parts of Telangana are experiencing some sudden and heavy showers in the last few days making everyone assume that the Southwest Monsoon is vigorous. But, that is not so. In fact, there is a lull in the monsoon activity and is likely to pick up towards August 26, say meteorologists.

“The monsoon has actually shifted towards North India. Peninsular India, Telangana and Hyderabad are receiving some rains due to a trough moving from Bay of Bengal to Arabian Sea and certain weather circulations from Karnataka and Odisha,” informed Telangana Development Planning Society weather consultant Y. V. Rama Rao on Friday.

The medium range forecast shows that the monsoon activity is likely to pick up towards the last week of this month and continue till the first week of September. This year, unusually there have been very few depressions or cyclones on the Bay of Bengal which normally aid the monsoon. “Whatever depressions are forming are going towards Bangladesh or West Bengal instead of coming towards Andhra Pradesh,” said Mr. Rao.

Another peculiarity this season has been the lack of heavy rains in July which was experienced in the last couple of years. “We have been having normal monsoon in June and heavy rains in July with relatively less rainfall in August. But, this year there have been no heavy rains in July and rainfall has been near normal in other two months. It is likely to remain the same in September,” said the meteorologist.

The less rainfall has also resulted in thin or low cloud cover leading to temperatures rising during the day from 35° C to even 39° C in certain places of the State during the day and during the night too the temperatures have been hovering around 21°C and 26° C degree, he said. Reason for making citizens turn on the ACs again.

The TGDPS has recorded the cumulative rainfall from June 1 to August 16 as 54 cm as against the normal of 47.6 cm or a positive deviation of 13%. Within the GHMC, the rainfall recorded during the same period has been about 38 cm against the normal of 37.1 cm with a deviation of just 2%.

The data also showed that of the 33 districts, 11 districts — Jogulamba Gadwal, Wanaparthy, Nagarkurnool, Mahabubnagar, Mulugu, Bhadradri Kothagudem, Karimnagar, Jayashankar, Peddapalli and Khammam — or 183 mandals had excess rainfall during the period.