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Vinson Kurian

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, June 11

THOUGH delayed by more than a week in announcing its arrival along the Kerala coast, the southwest monsoon has largely followed the beaten path as the inaugural "pulse" extended coverage further to the North and northeast.

The only aberration has been the markedly less intensity with which the tropical weather system made itself heard in Kerala.

The southern districts received little rain, if at all, after having been clearly bypassed in the onset phase. The monsoon is typically known to advance in pulses, as it is known in monsoon parlance, and a follow-up pulse can take some days to materialise.

On Wednesday, the fourth day since the onset, the State witnessed bright sunshine all over the place with Kasargode, which recorded four cm of rain, proving the only exception.

The core monsoon activity has shifted to west central India, according to Mr M. D. Ramachandran, Director, Met Office, Thiruvananthapuram. This is the usual monsoon pattern, he said.

When contacted, Mr Jeff Thompson, Meteorologist with the Global Weather Services, Kansas City, US, agreed with Mr Ramachandran. "Yes, the core of the monsoon activity has shifted North, and along the west-central parts of the country. It appears that this will continue through the weekend, as upper level divergence intensifies in the Arabian Sea, keeping the core of the convective activity in the central Arabian Sea," Mr Thompson said.

As if on cue, the official weather summary compiled by the India Meteorological Department spoke about rain and thundershowers in Konkan, Goa, coastal Karnataka and Lakshadweep, among other places, during the next 24 hours.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, central Maharashtra, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, interior Karnataka and Kerala will experience some rain activity at a few places. Isolated showers have been forecast in Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Himachal, Jammu and Kashmir, Marathwada, Vidarbha, Rayalaseema and parts of Tamil Nadu.

According to Mr Thompson, the strongest surface winds from the south-southwest will continue to blow from Maharashtra into Gujarat, while the rain showers that can be expected from Goa southward into Karnataka and Kerala will be relatively light. Western Goa and Maharashtra can expect 20-40 mm of daily monsoon rainfall, while Karnataka and Kerala will see daily rainfall amounts of 5-15 mm through the weekend.

"It does appear that the monsoon shower activity will intensify along the entire western coast of India by early next week, as the trough of low pressure deepens in northern India and the atmospheric dynamics over both the Arabian Sea and western India become more conducive to southwest monsoon intensification," Mr Thompson informed Business Line.

Shower activity will also begin to develop more frequently in Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and eastern parts of Madhya Pradesh next week. "So, the situation does appear to be improving and many areas will see relief very soon," Mr Thompson said.

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