New Delhi: After a five to seven-day delay, the southwest monsoon today hit Odisha, Bihar and West Bengal, cheering farmers and bringing relief from prolonged spells of heat and humidity, and is expected to reach eastern Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand by Friday.
Director of the meteorological centre in Bhubaneshwar S C Sahu said the monsoon is covering Odisha`s coastal districts of Puri, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore and parts of districts like Gajapati, Ganjam, Khurda, Cuttack, Jajpur, Keonjhar and Mayurbhanj.
The light to moderate pre-monsoon rains yesterday considerably lowered the temperature providing relief to the people and bringing respite to farmers and the common man. Usually, the monsoon reaches Odisha by June 13.
The monsoon reached Bihar after a week`s delay causing moderate rainfall in northern and north-eastern districts of the state, a MET department official said in Patna.
Moderate to light rains will lash these border districts over the next three days, the official said, adding the monsoon will spread over to south-west districts from June 20 next and the entire state.
The entire state will receive good rainfall for next four days from June 20, the Patna MET director said. In West Bengal, the monsoon hit the gangetic plains eight days behind schedule providing relief from hot and humid conditions.
"Monsoon arrived in most parts of West Bengal today", regional Met director G C Debnath said here adding "as a result, rainfall will be fairly widespread over all districts of the state.
He said that from June 20 onwards, heavy rainfall would occur in Terai region of Darjeeling, Coochbehar and Jalpaiguri districts.
The Indian Met Department said in Delhi that "conditions are favourable for further advance of the southwest monsoon into remaining parts of coastal Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar and some parts of Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha and eastern Uttar Pradesh during next 48 hours".
