The southwest monsoon is likely to break over Kerala today, the India Meteorological Department said yesterday.
The onset of the monsoon over Kerala represents the beginning of rainy season in the region.
According to the IMD’s Delhi office, generally monsoon strikes Kerala in the first week of June.
“The earlier prediction for Kerala was June 5,” said IMD official M Mahapatra.
The normal monsoon onset over Kerala is June 1 and since 2005, the IMD started to issue operational forecasts for the date.
Meanwhile, widespread summer rains or pre-monsoon showers have brought relief to the people from scorching heat and water scarcity across Karnataka, an official said in Bengaluru yesterday.
“Summer rains this month across the southern state have been good compared to the prolonged dry weather last year and augurs well for all ahead of the southwest monsoon from June first week,” Karnataka Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre director G S Srinivasa Reddy said.
Unlike last year, the south-interior, central and north-interior areas of the state received moderate to heavy rains since March and more so since May 10, filling up ponds and lakes and reviving water bodies to mitigate the hardship of the people, especially farmers reeling under the impact of a severe drought.
“Rainfall for May has been 30% excess in south-interior areas and normal in the Malnad region across the Western Ghats. Though there were rains in northern and coastal areas, inconsistency resulted in 25-30% deficit in the north region,” said Reddy, citing the weather data.
The precious and timely summer showers have also helped thousands of farmers and growers to take up agricultural operations.
“The much-needed rains in the old Mysuru and Malnad region have also been a boon for cattle in human habitats and wild animals in the forests where water bodies like ponds and lakes had dried up,” Reddy added.
l Several parts of Odisha are likely to receive heavy rains during the next 24 hours as a deep depression over east-central Bay of Bengal has intensified into cyclonic storm Mora, the IMD said.
The cyclonic storm lay centred over the Bay of Bengal, about 590km south east of Paradip, said an IMD release.
“The system is likely to intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm during the next 12 hours. It is very likely to move north-northeastwards and cross Bangladesh coast tomorrow,” said the release.
Dark clouds gather over the skyline in Mumbai yesterday as the monsoon season approaches.
