Amidst fears of below-normal rains, the South-West monsoon touched the Kerala coast, its threshold into the sub-continent, four days behind the normal schedule on Friday, bringing good news to several States that had been reeling under the scorching Sun and relief to more than 25-crore farmers in the country, who depend on monsoon rains for their Kharif crops.
“The South-West monsoon has set in over Kerala on June 5, 2015 against the normal date of June 1,” said the Indian Meteorological Department confirming the onset of the rainy season. The initial forecast on the monsoon onset was for May 30 but this was later changed to June 5. It had entered the Kerala territory in 2014 on June 6, five days behind normal schedule. The monsoon's intensity is likely to be felt in North India by June-end. The IMD said that monsoon had further advanced into entire South Arabian Sea, some parts of central Arabian Sea, entire lakshadweep, some parts of coastal and interior Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, remaining parts of South-West Bay of Bengal and some parts of central and North-West Bay of Bengal.
The weather conditions were also said to be favourable for the further advance of the South-West monsoon into more parts of the Arabian Sea, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, some parts of Rayalaseema, central Andhra Pradesh, and southern parts of the northeastern States during Saturday and Sunday.
According to the Met Department, the rainfall for the two days — Thursday and Friday — had been fairly widespread. Reports from the 14 rain-monitoring stations for monsoon onset over Kerala had showed that the rainfall for two days, one of the main parameters for the confirmation of monsoon onset, had satisfied the condition though it had not reached the 100 per cent level.
Westerly wind speeds, the other factor that determined onset, had also been in line with the start of monsoon, weathermen said. Coastal regions of Kerala had witnessed westerly winds with speeds between 40 kmph and 50 kmph on Thursday and Friday. Scientists at IMD, Thiruvananthapuram expected the monsoon to progress in the country as per normal schedule.
Weathermen confirmed that the rains Kerala had been receiving on Thursday and Friday were part of the southwest monsoon. Heavy rains had lashed several parts of Kerala since Thursday night. Though many parts of Karnataka and Tamil had received good rains in the past two days, it would take another 48 hours for the monsoon activity to intensify in these areas.
The weathermen had a few days ago scaled down this year's June-September monsoon rainfall forecast citing the presence of an El-Nino weather pattern, raising worries of a drought after several years. El-Nino, a phenomenon marked by warm surface waters in the South Pacific, increases the chance of droughts in the Asia-Pacific region.
Widespread rains might occur in Kerala in the 48 hours starting Saturday, the weather office said. It also said that heavy rains could lash many parts of Kerala and lakshadweep by Saturday morning. There was also the possibility of winds picking up speeds between 45 kmph and 55 kmph.