The IMD’s Pune forecast indicates a largely dry spell ahead
Pune: The southwest monsoon is likely to start withdrawing from Maharashtra over the next 24-48 hours as rainfall activity remains subdued and dry air begins to enter the state, IMD officials said on Thursday. He said there was currently no indication of a rainfall revival in parts of the state and thus withdrawal could commence during the next 24-48 hours.
“There is no rain forecast for Pune from Friday,” an IMD official said, adding that rainfall conditions over north Madhya Maharashtra during the next 24-48 hours would also be important in determining the withdrawal. Explaining the conditions required for declaring monsoon withdrawal, IMD scientist SD Sanap said there were two key criteria — rainfall should remain absent for consecutive days and the prevailing southwesterly monsoon winds should weaken or show a reversal. Sanap said an anticyclonic circulation over Rajasthan and adjoining areas was currently helping push dry air into Maharashtra. This indicates that mostly, in a large part of Maharashtra, the weather is likely to remain dry,” he said.
“The main thing is rainfall. “As an outflow of that anticyclonic circulation, dry air intrusion is happening over parts of Maharashtra. The prolonged lack of a sustained moisture surge also set the stage for the current transition towards monsoon withdrawal, with dry-air intrusion now strengthening as rainfall activity declines across the state.
The timing would be close to Maharashtra’s normal withdrawal commencement date of around Oct 4-5, while Pune could see the monsoon withdraw before its normal date of Oct 9, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) official told TOI .