India’s southwest monsoon is pushing steadily northward on Saturday, June 20, even as large parts of the country contend with a split weather picture: heavy rainfall battering the coasts and northeast while heatwaves persist across swaths of north and central India, according to the India Meteorological Department.
The IMD has warned that India faces the possibility of severely deficient rainfall overall this season due to the El Niño effect, a concern that looms over an already delayed monsoon advance in western and central India.
Where the Monsoon Stands
The monsoon front is currently passing through Harnai, Solapur, Hyderabad, Koraput, Phulbani, Muzaffarpur, Jamui, and Ranchi, the IMD said. Conditions are expected to become favourable for further advancement over parts of Maharashtra, Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Chhattisgarh around June 23.
Kolkata is forecast to see cloudy skies with light rain or thundershowers over the next 24 hours. Mumbai, however, will experience only partly cloudy skies with hot and humid conditions, reflecting the monsoon’s slower progress along the western coast.
Heavy Rainfall and Storm Alerts Across Multiple Regions
The IMD has forecast heavy rainfall throughout Saturday across a wide belt of states and territories, including Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Gangetic and sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala, Mahe, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and Karaikal. Thunderstorms and lightning are also expected across the entire Northeast region.
In Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh-Gilgit-Baltistan-Muzaffarabad, the IMD warned of hailstorms, thunderstorms, lightning, and gusty winds reaching 40 to 50 kilometres per hour on Saturday. Thunderstorms and lightning without hail are forecast across a long list of other states, including Andhra Pradesh, East Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Telangana, Vidarbha, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, among others.
Heatwaves Continue in North and Central India
Despite the monsoon’s advance, heatwave conditions are expected to prevail in some areas of Bihar, East Uttar Pradesh, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Telangana, and Vidarbha on Saturday. Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, and North Interior Karnataka are also likely to experience hot and humid weather through the day.
The dual reality of flooding rains in some regions and scorching heat in others underscores the uneven nature of the monsoon’s arrival this year, a pattern the IMD links in part to the broader influence of El Niño on seasonal rainfall across the subcontinent.
