The weather department confirmed last night what has become obvious to the layman and weather-watching farmers – that the monsoon is unlikely to revive in the next few days.

According to India Meteorological Department predictions, the rainy season may gather momentum on or after 20 June, pushing it at least 10 days behind the 'normal' date of 10 June for Maharashtra.

Farmers have been hit hard as the sowing the kharif crop has got delayed. But some traders may be laughing all the way to the bank – futures of condiments and spices like jeera and pepper have soared on the back of the uncertain monsoon.

Up to 7 June, the monsoon had entered parts of Maharashtra including Kolhapur district, a sugarcane growing region, as per the map on the IMD website. But there has been no further advance since.

Monsoon rain for the week ended 10 June was 37 per cent below normal as its progress stalled after an early start, IMD said last week. The monsoon hit the southern coast on 23 May, ahead of the normal date of 1 June, but then weakened in last week of May and first week of June.

''The absence of favourable conditions has prevented the monsoon from making progress,'' said P C S Rao, director (weather, central), IMD. However, favourable conditions are expected in three or four days, he added.

''Strong westerly winds required for the monsoon to advance have not been present,'' he said.

Maharashtra's agriculture commissioner Prabhakar Deshmukh is reported to have told The Times of India, ''Even though sowing still has to begin in districts, there is no need to panic. We have witnessed similar situations in the past, when kharif sowing had been delayed due to late arrival of the monsoon. As per schedule, sowing for the kharif season is expected to continue till 15 July. Therefore, it is too early to comment about any damage or decrease in yield that could arise from the delay."

A Hindu Business Line report from Thiruvananthapuram quotes an expert as saying that the monsoon would have to go through another ''elaborate onset phase'' before it thunders into Mumbai, north peninsular and central India.

Mumbai would need to wait for at least another week to get the first monsoon showers, the publication quoted Akhilesh Gupta, an operational forecaster and an advisor with the Department of Science and Technology, as saying.

According to Gupta, the onset phase is being repeated since the revival is largely coming from much lower latitudes in the Arabian Sea rather than from the central region, from where the monsoon would have raced to Mumbai.

This would mean that the rains would be mostly active over those areas where it has already made the onset. No northward progress from its 7 June position is indicated until 22 June, according to the report.

According to Gupta, the one redeeming feature is that there is no possibility yet of a brewing 'low' in the Bay of Bengal getting dissipated or going the 'Aila' way to play spoilsport. Only, the northward progress of monsoon would be painfully slow. And the Arabian Sea would take its own time to get sufficiently 'excited' to play catch-up.