India, July 24 -- The past two weeks have seen a quick reversal in the status of monsoon rains. Last week, most of the country remained dry. This week has seen relatively more widespread rainfall like the first week of July. How did this change happen? Through a rather routine process in the season, which often happens after the progress of the weather system is already complete. The following charts explain how.

The change in the status of monsoon can be seen by tracking daily rainfall this July against the 1971-2020 average for those days, which the India Meteorological Department (IMD) considers as the Long Period Average (LPA) for tracking rainfall performance. From July 10 to July 19, India received less rain than the LPA on every d...