This is only the third occasion in the past 10 years when the summer monsoon recorded early onset (before June 1).
“Conditions are favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some parts of central Arabian Sea, reaming parts of Kerala, some more parts of Tamil Nadu, some parts of Karnataka, and some more parts of south and Central Bay of Bengal, some parts of northeast Bay of Bengal and northeastern states during next 3-4 days,” said the Met department.
Advance of the monsoon map, released by the IMD, shows the seasonal rains will reach western Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and parts of Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan during June 25-30.
The IMD had earlier this month predicted the monsoon onset over Kerala on May 27 with a model error of ± 4 days. It claimed that its operational forecasts of the date of monsoon onset over the state during the past 18 years (2005-2022) were proved to be correct except in 2015.
“All conditions are fulfilled for the onset of monsoon over Kerala…Conditions are now further favourable to also cover more parts of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bay of Bengal and also northeastern states… There will be no heatwave conditions for the next five days over Delhi, northwest and central India,” said R K Jenamani, senior scientist, IMD.
Though parts of coastal Kerala have been witnessing rainfall for the last couple of days, the Met department waited for all the conditions to be met before its formal announcement for the monsoon onset over the state which marks the beginning of the rainy season on India’s mainland.
The Met department said out of 14 rainfall monitoring stations for declaring onset of monsoon over Kerala, 10 stations have received rainfall of 2.5 mm or more during the past 24 hours. The other conditions include depth of westerly winds extending upto 4.5 km above mean sea level, strength of the westerly winds and cloudiness over southeast Arabian Sea and adjoining areas of Kerala.
The IMD in the next couple of days will release its second stage forecast for monsoon, predicting regional distribution of rainfall during the season.
