Though the South West monsoon will start withdrawing at the fag end from West Rajasthan starting second week of September, as per norm, the decrease in showers might not be swift in other parts of the country as new low pressure areas are developing over the Bay of Bengal. These are likely to cause good rains over Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala in the next four weeks.

In other parts of the country, there could be a increase in rainfall from the third week of September.

"Though the rainfall activity has declined in September as compared to August and is now below normal, rains will revive in the next few days as fresh weather systems are developing," IMD Director General Mrutanjay Mohapatra told reporters today.

IMD accepted that actual rainfall in July and August was outside its forecast as the spread of low-pressure areas (LPA) was uneven though the total quantum was lower than last year.

As against the average 13-14 LPA, India this year experienced around 7 LPAs.

The southwest monsoon this year was 17 per cent above normal in June, while in July it was 10 per cent below normal. However, the rains recovered sharply and the cumulative rainfall was 27 per cent above normal in August.

In the month of August, out of the 31 days, around 27 days had low-pressure areas.

A reason perhaps why, the total southwest monsoon in August across India was best monthly performance for August since 1926.

The met department expects the cumulative southwest monsoon for 2020 to be more than its forecast of 102 per cent of the Long Period Average, as rains are continuing over several parts of the country, but it will be less than 110 per cent of Long Period Average.

Till September 06, the southwest monsoon has been cumulatively 107 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA), which in other words means 7 per cent more than normal.

The Long Period Average of the four month southwest monsoon season is around 88 centimeters.

Private weather forecasting agency, Skymet too today said that the southwest monsoon is expected to withdraw from west Rajasthan shortly.

The good progress and spread of southwest monsoon this year has spurred sowing of kharif crops which till last week has reached a all-time high of over 109 million hectares with oilseeds and rice leading the way.

"As on date out of the 36 metereological subdivisions in the country only three have received deficient rains.