Conditions are favourable for the onset of the South-West monsoon over Kerala by Tuesday, the median date predicted two weeks ago by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

Piloted by cyclone ‘Mora’ in the Bay of Bengal, the seasonal rains advanced into the South Arabian Sea, the Maldives-Comorin area, and more parts of the Bay on Monday, to the other side of the peninsula.

The IMD expected the monsoon to cover more parts of the South Arabian Sea, Maldives-Lakshadweep, most of Kerala, and parts of Tamil Nadu by Tuesday. Meanwhile, the local Met Office in Thiruvanantapuram said that rain occurred at many places in Kerala and at a few places in Lakshadweep on Monday.

Rainfall reported in cm (4 cm and above) are Mavelikkara and Vaikom-6 each; Kochi airport-5; Enamackel, Irinjalakuda, Quilandy, and Haripad-4 each. A heavy rain warning is valid for the state until June 5, which points to a copybook style onset phase not seen anytime in the past few years.

Weather warning A warning issued by the local Met Office said that strong westerly winds occasionally reaching 45- to 55 km/hr in speed are likely along and off Kerala and over Lakshadweep until Tuesday noon. Conditions are also favourable for the simultaneous onset of the monsoon over the North-Eastern States, which may have to bear the fury of cyclone ‘Mora’ as it makes landfall on Tuesday close to Chittagong in Bangladesh. The strong monsoon flows over the Arabian Sea are forecast to conjure up a circulation off the West Coast, leading to a brief disruption in heavy monsoonal rain during the course of the week.

But the southern flanks of the flows should start re-converging sooner rather than later, bringing heavy rains to Konkan and Mumbai.

Alongside, the Bay of Bengal is forecast to wake up post-cyclone Mora, and is forecast to toss up a crucial circulation on the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coast (not around ‘Head Bay’ as was initially thought).

Depression possible The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts says that it could intensify to a monsoon depression, whose expected west-northwest track could bring the monsoon into the farming heartland of East and adjoining Central India.

Weather systems forming over this stretch of the East Coast are known to take this track, which is crucial for spatial and temporal coverage of the rains. Given this, the circulation will be put under close watch.

Meanwhile, pre-monsoon showers have been normal over the South Peninsula, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, the North-Eastern States and Jammu & Kashmir. Rajasthan and Bihar received excess precipitation during this season.

But elsewhere, the rains were deficient or scanty. Falling under this category are some of the big states, such as Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where rains were scanty.

Pre-monsoon rain was deficient in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.

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