LUCKNOW, June 19 -- The southwest monsoon finally made its first appearance in the state this year on Wednesday. However, it, yet again, defied the trends by entering the state from Jhansi, Lalitpur and Sonbhadra districts in the south for the second year in a row. Last year, it arrived in the state through Lalitpur, which borders Madhya Pradesh, on June 25, as the Arabian Sea branch of monsoon was more active, which was quite unusual. As such, weathermen anticipate that the weather system may make a reentry in two to three days, but this time from the eastern districts of the state. Normally, the monsoon enters UP through Ballia and Gorakhpur from Bihar and Jharkhand. "The monsoon has advanced into some more parts of North Arabian Sea, remaining parts of Gujarat, some parts of Rajasthan, some more parts of Madhya Pradesh, southern parts of eastern UP, remaining parts of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand and some more parts of Bihar," the meteorological centre in Lucknow said in its bulletin. "The monsoon's northern limit is passing through Barmer, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Gwalior, Khajuraho, Sonbhar and Gaya. Conditions are favourable for its further advancement into some more parts of UP over the next 2 to 3 days," said Mohd Danish, a senior scientist at the Lucknow Met. Due to a low-pressure area formed around Gangetic West Bengal, it will move further in the west-northwest direction over the next 24 hours, the Met said. Meanwhile, the rain on Wednesday brought down the rain deficit to 27% from 46% on Monday. While Ayodhya received 25.8 mm of rain, Churk and Sultanpur experienced 5.6 mm and 5.2 mm of rain. There is a possibility of a widespread increase in rainfall, along with thunderstorms and lightning, in the state from Thursday and heavy to very heavy rainfall at some places from June 19 to 22. The state forecast is rain/thundershower very likely at many places over West UP and rain/thundershower very likely at most places over East UP. IMD issued a warning of thunderstorms, accompanied by lightning/gusty winds (speed 40-50 kmph) at isolated places in the state. Heavy rain was very likely at isolated places in West UP. Heavy to very heavy rain was very likely at isolated places in East UP. The maximum temperature in all meteorological stations of UP dropped below 40 degrees Celsius. Orai was hottest in the state at 38.4 degrees, followed by 38 degrees each at Fatehgarh and Lakhimpur Kheri. In the state capital, mercury hovered between 36.4 and 26.8 degrees Celsius. On Thursday, the city may experience cloudy skies with a few spells of rain/thundershower with temperatures between 34 and 26 degrees. How monsoon usually progresses in UP: it is scheduled to reach Gorakhpur on June 18; Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur and Prayagraj on June 23; Jhansi, Bareilly on June 24; Mainpuri on June 25; Agra and Bijnor on June 27....