Most parts of Pune woke up Saturday to cloudy skies with areas like Undri, Shivajinagar reporting light showers. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Friday said the South West Monsoon has progressed further in the state and has entered parts of East Vidarbha. Pune and its surrounding areas are expected to receive light to very light rains as the monsoon progresses further. At present the Northern Limit of the Monsoons lies along Ratnagiri, Bijapur, Nizamabad, Durg, Daltonganj, Buxar and other areas. Since Friday, the South West Monsoon has started covering more parts of the country after being stagnant over Ratnagiri for most parts of June. The monsoon has now covered most parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana as well as parts of Vidarbha and Chhattisgarh. The IMD has said the conditions are favourable for further progress of the monsoon in more parts of Maharashtra, parts of Chhattisgarh, remaining parts of East Madhya Pradesh and some parts of Uttar Pradesh. The IMD’s forecast has talked of this progress happening over the next three to four days. For Pune, this has been good news as the city has not seen any rainfall from the beginning of monsoon. Clear skies with temperatures ranging between 34-35 degrees Celsius has become normal along with little or no rainfall. On Saturday morning, parts like Shivajinagar, Undri, Katraj, Pashan and other areas reported light to very light rainfall. The IMD has issued a forecast of light to very light rains for Pune over the weekend. Further, the monsoon is expected to be active over the city and other parts of the district next week onwards. June has been exceptionally dry for the country. The monsoon, post its onset in Kerala on June 8, has been extremely sluggish due to the emergence of Biparjoy which stopped the progress of the monsoon. The monsoon touched Ratnagiri on June 11-12. However, post that, there was no movement for the rest of the month. Activation of the monsoon started only towards the middle of this week. The country has reported a whopping 31 per cent deficit in the total rainfall till date.
