Himachal Pradesh to face heavy rain Thursday, Delhi to see light showers

Cuttack collected 21 cm of rain in the 24 hours to 8:30 am on July 22. Maksudangarh in West Madhya Pradesh took 17 cm.The monsoon has swung its heaviest belt over central and eastern India, and Thursday, July 23, brings no relief.The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast isolated very heavy rain over West Madhya Pradesh and heavy rain stretching from Odisha to the Himalayan states on July 23.Delhi sits at the gentle end of the same system, with light rain and a cooler than normal day. WHY IS IT RAINING SO HEAVILY ACROSS INDIA RIGHT NOW?Five weather systems are sitting over the country at once, feeding one another.The first is the monsoon trough, a long belt of low pressure that runs across northern India and acts as the monsoon's spine. It drifts north and south through the season. Right now, it lies south of its normal position, which is textbook active monsoon, pulling rain-bearing winds deep into central India instead of parking them against the Himalayan foothills.A 2025 study in Scientific Reports tracks this seesaw, and the IMD's own monsoon primer confirms a southerly trough delivers good rain across most of India. Isro's INSAT-3DR captures the coldest, most intense cloud tops over the northwest and northeast Bay of Bengal (left), the engine behind this week's return of rain to India. A separate cold-cloud mass presses into the Gujarat and Maharashtra coast in this INSAT-3DR image of the Arabian Sea (right), showing the western flank of the same monsoon system. (Photo: IMD/Isro) The second is an upper air cyclonic circulation over north Madhya Pradesh. Picture a slowly spinning column of air turning anticlockwise, working like a pump that lifts moist air until it cools and condenses into clouds.The third is an east-west shear zone along 22 degrees North latitude across central India. Shear means wind changing speed or direction with height. Where that happens, thunderstorms stop being solitary and organise into long-lived clusters that soak the same districts again and again.The fourth is a Western Disturbance over Jammu, a moisture-carrying storm from the Mediterranean. Usually a winter visitor, in July it adds lift over the mountains.A fifth circulation over northeast Assam keeps the Northeast wet.WILL IT RAIN IN DELHI ON JULY 23?Yes, but gently. Generally cloudy, with one or two spells of very light to light rain at many places from early morning to noon, and another at a few places at night.The maximum will sit between 32 and 34 degrees Celsius, the minimum between 23 and 25. Thick cloud cover is blocking sunlight, which is why the capital is running below normal for late July.WHICH STATES WILL GET HEAVY RAIN ON JULY 23?IMD counts 64.5 to 115.5 mm in a day as heavy, 115.6 to 204.4 mm as very heavy, and anything above 204.4 mm as extremely heavy. Isolated very heavy rain is forecast over West Madhya Pradesh, Konkan and Goa.Isolated heavy rain is likely over Odisha, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Coastal Karnataka, Telangana and Assam. West Madhya Pradesh is in IMD's very heavy bracket on July 23, meaning between 115.6 mm and 204.4 mm of rain in a single day. (Photo: PTI) The extremely heavy category stays with Madhya Maharashtra and the Gujarat Region.South peninsular India remains subdued for seven more days.WHICH DISTRICTS FACE FLASH FLOOD RISK ON JULY 23?Low to moderate risk until 11.30 am. Soil is already saturated across Kathua and Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir, Shimla and Kangra in Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarkashi, Dehradun and Nainital in Uttarakhand, IMD's district-wise warning map shows.Saturated ground cannot absorb any more water, so fresh rain has nowhere to go but sideways. That is how a flash flood begins, and why an ordinary shower could do the damage of a downpour.- EndsPublished By: Radifah KabirPublished On: Jul 22, 2026 19:30 IST