Monsoon covers whole of Maharashtra; hot, humid weather in most of north India

New Delhi: The southwest monsoon continued its advance and covered the whole of Maharashtra and parts of Chhattisgarh and Gujarat on Sunday while many parts of northern India experienced hot and humid weather.

The mercury hovered close to 40 degrees Celsius in the national capital while the humidity levels oscillated between 40 and 82 per cent.

Safdarjung Observatory, which provides representative figures for Delhi, recorded a maximum of 40.8 degrees Celsius, which was a notch above the normal. The weather stations at Palam and Pusa recorded their maximum temperature at 41.4 and 42.2 degrees Celsius respectively.

The city may witness overcast conditions on Monday with the maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to settle at 41 and 28 degrees Celsius.

Day temperature at most places in Punjab and Haryana continued to hover close to the normal limits with Chandigarh, the common capital of the two states, recording a high of 38.8 degrees Celsius.

In Haryana, Ambala and Hisar recorded a high of 40 degrees Celsius and 41 degrees Celsius respectively, while day temperature in Karnal was 37.8 degrees Celsius and 39.8 degrees Celsius in Narnaul.

In Punjab, Amritsar, Ludhiana and Patiala recorded their respective highs at 40.4 degrees Celsius, 40.9 degrees Celsius and 40.3 degrees Celsius respectively. The India Meteorological Department said the progress of the monsoon has so far been normal and on the expected lines.

Four days after hitting coastal Maharashtra, the southwest monsoon made steady progress and has now covered the entire state.

Heavy showers led to water-logging at the Nashik Road police station on Saturday. In Beed district, which faced acute water shortage in last few years, received good showers in the past one week, filling up some of the dry river beds. 

Monsoon has also become active over most parts of Chhattisgarh where several districts are likely to receive heavy rainfall in the next two days.

While the monsoon generally reaches Ambikapur in north Chhattisgarh by the third week of June, this time it arrived a week earlier, a weather department official said.

Many parts of the state, including capital city Raipur received copious amount of showers in the last two days that led to pleasant weather conditions.

The southwest monsoon has become active in almost all parts of the state except a few districts like Koriya and Bilaspur, he said.

Moderate to heavy rainfall coupled with thunderstorm is likely at one or two places in Surguja, Jashpur, Balrampur, Koriya, Surajpur, Bilasupr, Raigarh, Bastar, Dantewada and Narayanpur districts.

On Sunday, Raipur recorded a maximum temperature of 32.4 degree Celsius, Bilaspur 31.4 degree Celsius, Ambikapur 34.5 degree Celsius and Jagdalpur 30.9 degree Celsius.

Heavy to very heavy rainfall is also likely in some southern parts of Gujarat in the next five days.

Parts of Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Valsad, and the Union Territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli received heavy rainfall since Saturday. Rains also lashed many places in northern and a few areas of southern parts of the state.

Thundershower and rain were observed in most places of coastal Karnataka, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal and some northeastern states.