India's crucial monsoon appearedset to march ahead as weather conditions were favourable foradvance of the seasonal rains into parts of Maharashtra,Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh over the next two days.
The forecast of progress of monsoon, after a nearly twoweek hiatus, comes as a welcome relief to the northern regionwhich has been reeling under intense heatwave conditions.
"Conditions are favourable for further advance ofsouthwest monsoon into remaining parts of Maharashtra andsome more parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh during next 48hours," the India Meteorological Department said in a forecastissued this evening.
Monsoon rains have been 31 per cent deficient so far andthe weather office data showed 83 per cent of the area of thecountry, including the granary states of Punjab and Haryana,receiving deficient or scanty rainfall till today.
The country as a whole has received 124.5 mm rainfall asagainst the normal of 180.6 mm since the onset till July one.
Maximum temperature would fall by two to four degreesCelsius over northwest, east and central India during nextthree days.
Rainfall in June accounts for 18 per cent of season'stotal and the deficiency had been 29 per cent till yesterday.
In 2009, the June rains were 47.2 per cent below a50-year average called as the long period average.
This year has seen a delayed onset of monsoon rains overKerala and they have been making a sluggish progress drawingconcerns from the farming community.
The weather office, however, has only marginallydowngraded the seasonal forecast keeping it within the normalrange.