The Meteorological Department said on Sunday that the southwest monsoon reached Kerala three days ahead of its normal time.
The Southwest Monsoon had advanced over Lakshadweep, Comorin and entire Maldives and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday that conditions are favorable for the arrival of Monsoon into Kerala during the next two to three days. It had given the date of onset of monsoon as June 1.
Earlier this month, the IMD had said that the onset of monsoon over Kerala would be on May 27, with a standard deviation of four days on either side.
However, the start of the rainy season on mainland India may not be smooth after the onset in Kerala.
According to the latest Extended Range Forecast (ERF) released by the IMD, after onset over Kerala (which has happened), progress over Karnataka, Goa and across Northeast India – where the initial advance of monsoon occurs – appears to be slow.
The ERF shows that the rainfall activity will be below normal in these areas till around June 8.
Despite this, monsoon may still enter on time and make up for this slow progress. For example, the normal date of arrival of monsoon in Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Agartala, Dimapur, Udupi, Chennai is June 4; above Tezpur, Aizawl, Shillong, Imphal and Itanagar is June 5; Above Gangavati is 6th June; And in Goa it is June 7.
All southern states/UTs have received above normal rainfall since March along with Karnataka (149 per cent), Lakshadweep (137 per cent), Kerala (108 per cent), Puducherry (65 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (37 per cent). 26 May. During the pre-monsoon season, only Telangana (minus 30 per cent) is deficient in rainfall.
This year, IMD has predicted normal rainfall and there is a 99 percent chance of rain long term average (LPA).