After an agonising pause of more than a fortnight, India’s southwest monsoon has finally stirred back to life, promising a wave of cooler, wetter weather for millions who have been baking under an unforgiving early‑summer sun.
Two senior officials of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) confirmed on Monday that fresh atmospheric currents forming over the Bay of Bengal have jump‑started the seasonal winds, setting the stage for rainclouds to march steadily across the country’s parched interior during the week ahead.
For the past two weeks, large swathes of the nation—from the grain belts of Punjab and Haryana to the densely populated river valleys of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar—have endured record‑shattering temperatures.
Daytime highs frequently topped 45 °C, pushing the limits of human endurance, straining electrical grids, and driving up demand for scarce drinking water.
Schools in several northern states curtailed classes, and hospitals reported a surge in heat‑stroke cases as sidewalk thermometers touched 48 °C in pockets of Rajasthan and Delhi. In the countryside, wilting seedlings and depleted canals had farmers on edge, waiting anxiously for the monsoon’s reprieve.
That relief, the IMD says, is finally materialising. By late Monday, monsoon showers had swept across nearly the whole of Maharashtra, spilled into neighbouring Gujarat, and advanced into parts of Madhya Pradesh—an unmistakable sign that the stalled rain belt has regained its customary momentum.
The weather bureau expects the rejuvenated surge to blanket the remainder of central India within days, followed by a north-northwestward push that should temper the scorching plains before the end of June.
The annual June‑to‑September monsoon is nothing less than the lifeblood of India’s almost ₹330 lakh‑crore (UUS$$4 trillion) economy.
Roughly 70 percent of the nation’s total rainfall is delivered during these four months, recharging reservoirs, aquifers, and irrigation channels. Nearly half of India’s 140 million hectares of farmland lack artificial irrigation; for those fields, the monsoon is the sole dependable source of water for crops such as rice, cotton, soybeans, sugarcane, and pulses.
This year’s onset was an intriguing paradox. The monsoon officially reached Kerala on 24 May, beating the traditional 1 June deadline and rapidly covering the southern peninsula, the northeast, and parts of western India in just five days.
Then, almost abruptly, the conveyor belt of moist air stalled on 29 May, leaving central and northern regions high and dry. Meteorologists blamed an absence of low‑pressure systems in the Bay of Bengal—features that usually act as pulleys, dragging moisture inland.
That meteorological void has now been filled. “A favourable system has formed over the Bay,” an IMD official told Reuters, “and it is providing the necessary steering flow to propel the monsoon north‑westward.”
Another senior forecaster predicted copious rainfall along the west coast, central highlands, and some northern districts over “the next ten days,” a deluge potent enough to slice several degrees off daytime highs.
The numbers highlight how dire the situation had become. India received 31 percent less rainfall than normal during the first half of June—a deficit that fanned heatwaves and left paddy growers hesitant to transplant seedlings.
The IMD now expects the second half of the month to swing to an above‑average surplus, more than compensating for the early shortfall if current projections hold.
Rapid progress is critical. In a typical year, monsoon showers reach most of the country by mid‑July, but water‑stress indicators were already flashing red in key agrarian states.
Reservoir storage in northern India slipped below 25 percent of capacity, according to the Central Water Commission, and feeder canals in eastern Uttar Pradesh were running at a trickle. Rural households relied on tanker trucks and deep borewells, while urban centres like Delhi invoked power‑saving measures as air‑conditioner use spiked.
For farmers, the stakes are immediate. Timely rains allow them to sow rice paddies, cotton, and soybeans during a narrow planting window that closes by mid‑July. Any further delay could force a switch to lower‑yielding or drought‑resistant crops, jeopardising both incomes and national food security.
The IMD’s latest forecast should prevent that worst‑case scenario, though agronomists caution that evenly distributed rainfall remains essential; torrential downpours followed by dry spells can do as much harm as drought.
Yet for this week at least, the outlook is optimistic.
Weather models show a uniform band of moisture sweeping toward the plains, and temperatures have already dipped a few degrees in coastal Maharashtra after the first heavy showers.
If the present rhythm holds, the IMD says, the monsoon could drench most of India well before the calendar flips to July, bringing the first real respite from one of the most blistering Junes in recent memory.