The much anticipated southwest monsoon hit the Anantapur district, the southwestern part of Andhra Pradesh, on Friday, with the district experiencing heavy rains from the early hours of Friday morning. The district recorded an average of 30mm of precipitation in the 24 hours that ended at 8:30 a.m. on Friday, but some locations experienced very heavy rainfall with thunderstorms.
The city of Anantapur recorded 91 mm of rain in six hours from midnight, while the mandal in Nambulapulakunta recorded 102.4 mm and Puttaparthi recorded 100 mm.
With the distribution process for subsidized peanut seeds almost complete in another 10 days, farmers are preparing to sow the kharif crop as it has rained in most of the district’s central and southern mandalas for the past two days.
Puttaparthi, Amarapurm, NP Kunta, Bukkarayasamudram and Rapthadu had seen rainfall in the past two days, and agricultural land would be ready for sowing if there was 50mm of rainfall in three days, researchers from Rekulakunta Agricultural Research said.
Y. Ramakrishna, the joint director of agriculture, said that so far 2.06 lakh farmers have registered to receive 1.76 lakh quintals of peanut seeds and 1.39 lakh quintals have been distributed, with the registration deadline ending June 17.
The Indian Meteorological Service said in a press release that the monsoons had penetrated most of the coast and in the south / north interior of Karnataka, as well as in Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Tamil Nadu. The northern limit of the monsoons now goes through Karwar, Anantapur, Arogyavaram, Vellore, Nagapattinam and will very likely continue to advance into some parts of Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Telangana in the next two to three days.