A westerly trough has slowed the progress of the monsoon in northwest India and it will take seven to 10 more days for the wind system to reach Delhi, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on June 15.
"Due to the adverse influence of mid-latitude westerlies, a hiatus in further advance of Southwest monsoon into remaining parts of northwest India. The situation is being monitored continuously and will be updated on a daily basis," news agency PTI quoted Kuldeep Srivastava, the head of the IMD's regional forecasting centre, as saying.
"The delay may be for 7-10 days. The situation will be more clear tomorrow (June 16)," he added.
The weather department had earlier predicted that the wind system may reach Delhi by June 15.
Normally, the monsoon reaches Delhi by June 27 and covers the entire country by July 8. However, light rainfall is predicted in the national capital on June 16.
By June 13, monsoon had covered Madhya Pradesh, entire Chhattisgarh, Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar, most parts of east Uttar Pradesh, some parts of western Uttar Pradesh, northern Haryana, Chandigarh and northern Punjab, and all of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The southwest monsoon reaches western Rajasthan by the first week of July. The region is also its last outpost in the country to cover. It reaches northwest Rajasthan late and also withdraws from there early. The southwest monsoon made an onset over Kerala on June 3, two days after its normal date. But then it made rapid progress covering many parts of east, west, south and central India before the normal date.
In 2020, the wind system had reached Delhi on June 25 and had covered the entire country by June 29.
(With inputs from PTI)