Rain in time, heavy showers to continue in state: Met office

Patna: The first monsoon rain lashed the state capital with thunderstorm Tuesday evening as southwest monsoon covered the entire state and is active over its southwest districts after making rapid progress over the last few days, Met department confirmed.
"Monsoon is now vigorous over entire north and northeast districts while it is quite active in rest of Bihar.The rains are here in time as per our forecast," said state IMD director AK Sen on Tuesday. There will be heavy to very heavy rain in several districts of north Bihar during the next 48 hours while rest of the state will also receive moderate to heavy rain during the next four days. Patna recorded 17.2mm rainfall on Tuesday, said the state IMD official.
"The onset of monsoon in Patna and other districts like Bhojpur, Gaya, Jehanabad, Arwal and Aurangabad brought huge relief to the beleaguered farmers who were waiting for rain to take up kharif farming like paddy, pulses, oilseeds etc," said deputy director, horticulture, Nitesh Rai.
In the initial burst, the monsoon made its entry into Bihar and Jharkhand through the northeast and there has been widespread rainfall in 29 districts over the last three days. The depth of cyclonic circulation was 4.5km, while the wind speed was over 40km/hour.
As per Delhi IMD release, the southwest monsoon has further advanced into remaining parts of central Maharashtra, east Madhya Pradesh and entire Bihar, most parts of west Madhya Pradesh, east Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, entire Jammu & Kashmir and some parts of west Uttar Pradesh.
According to Skymet Weather Services, the cyclonic circulation over central India has shifted to the northeast direction and is presently lying over Uttar Pradesh and adjoining areas. This system has been instrumental in ushering in active monsoon over west Madhya Pradesh and most parts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
Monsoon has also reached the hills of north India as well. All the cyclonic circulations were aligned along the Indo-Gangetic plains. This resulted in heavy showers in the foothills of Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.