Met Dept resets likely onset date for monsoon to Friday

The India Met Department expects the monsoon to set in by Friday, with moisture-laden winds blowing consistently in the south-westerly direction into Lakshadweep and Kerala.

Rains have been persisting over Lakshadweep and southern parts of the peninsula during the 24 hours ending Monday morning.

Guidelines for declaring the onset require that 60 per cent of available 14 stations across Lakshadweep, Kerala and Mangalore report rainfall of 2.5 mm or more for two consecutive days.

The onset over Kerala is declared on the second day provided winds at various heights of the atmosphere fall into westerly to south-westerly direction and clock at specified speed.

“Persistence of convection (cloud-building and rain) over Lakshadweep and Kerala indicates that conditions are becoming favourable for monsoon onset around June 5,” the Met said on Monday evening.

This will be two days later than the outermost limit set earlier when the Met had said the onset would happen on May 30 with a model error of plus or minus four days.

Global models are depicting a situation where a low-pressure area spinning up off the Kerala-Karnataka coast drives rain along the West Coast and interior peninsula during the first week of June.

Rains are expected to be heavier over Kerala, coast Karnataka and parts of southern Tamil Nadu during this period.

The low-pressure area is forecast to veer off the coast into the outer sea during the week that follows. It could bring rain into Mumbai, Gujarat and south-west Rajasthan as also Karachi in Pakistan.

A projection by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology corroborated this outlook. It said the low-pressure area would be guided towards the Oman coast by June 11.

An offshore trough, an essential monsoon feature, is expected to form along the West Coast by June 17. Organised rain may return to cover more parts of the country hence, the outlook said.

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