Good rain in Pune puts on hold cloud-seeding again

According to Met officials, the withdrawal of monsoon, which was expected to be earlier than usual, will likely follow the usual pattern and will occur towards the month-end since there was no movement of southwest monsoon over Amritsar, Hisar and Barner.

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Pune has received a total of 427.3 mm of rainfall for the season.

Elsewhere in the state too, the rainfall deficiency has reduced. Till a few days back, Konkan and Goa recorded 32 per cent rainfall deficiency, central Maharashtra 36 per cent, Marathwada 42 per cent and Vidarbha region 14 per cent. “With continuous rains throughout the state, the deficiency is likely to reduce further,” officials said.

Meanwhile, cloud-seeding in catchment areas of Pune, which was planned to start on Friday, has been put on hold for now following heavy showers. A month-long cloud-seeding in Marathwada led to around 1,500 mm of rainfall in the region, after which the state government had planned to shift it to areas near western ghats. “As of now, we will adopt a wait-and-watch policy. Unless there are seedable clouds, we will have to wait. Moreover, with good rains in the district as was forecast earlier by the Met department, we would have to wait to get appropriate clouds for seeding. We will be keeping a close watch on the same,” an official said.

Though Pune’s catchment areas have now received good rainfall, dams are only half-full. Irrigation officials say it will need at least four to five days of rain to improve the situation.

On early morning Friday, the total storage in the four dams of Khadakwasla, Temghar, Varasgaon and Panshet was at 14. 76 TMC (50.64 per cent).