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The monsoon had entered the southern-most parts of the Maldives-Comorin, more areas of South-West, South-East and even East-Central Bay of Bengal, remaining parts of the Andaman Sea and the Andaman Islands by Thursday afternoon.
This broad sweep of the monsoon was in normal south-west to north-east alignment, representing the ‘pincer-like’ approach of its arms - across the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal - into the Indian subcontinent.
Major milestones
Along the way, it has to pass two major milestones - onset over Sri Lanka, the northern parts of Myanmar as well as the North-Eastern States in India - where it is already late by 8-10 days.
The normal date of onset over Sri Lanka is May 22, and then over mainland India in Kerala, little more than a week later. As of Thursday, the northern limit of the monsoon passed south of the island nation.
The Maldives Met Service had issued a ‘yellow alert’ on Thursday afternoon, warning of torrential rain and thunderstorm with wind gusts of 72 km/hr. Fairly widespread rains with occasional heavy showers and thunderstorms were forecast over the atolls.
Surface winds would vary between southwesterly-to-westerly at 20-37 km/hr over the central atolls and 11-27 km/hr elsewhere with gusts of 64 km/hr. Seas would be ‘rough’ off the central atolls and during showers elsewhere.
Below normal rain
The Sri Lankan Met Department said the active cloudiness in the south-western seas is fraught with the possibility of heavy showers/thundershowers and winds speeding up to 80 km/hr off the coast from Colombo to Hambantota via Galle.
Meanwhile, the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Service hinted that a below-normal rainfall regime would prevail over the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia until June 11.
This assessment is based on expected delay in the movement of the monsoon-driving wet phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave across the Indian Ocean.
Models are split on the MJO wave movement over the next two weeks. Only European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the Japanese Met Agency ensemble show it moving across the Indian Ocean during this week (May 29 to June 4).
Over Sri Lanka first
The Global Ensemble Forecast System maintains a more stationary MJO signal over Africa and the West Indian Ocean, which could mean extension of below-normal rainfall regime over India.
An alternating dry phase of the MJO wave is currently sitting over the region, allowing searing heat to develop over many parts of the country, the US agency said in an update.
The best hope for a favourable phase of the MJO to come into West Indian Ocean and adjoining South Arabian Sea is between June 5 and11, likely triggering the monsoon onset over Sri Lanka first.
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