The South-West monsoon has managed to break out of a nine-day gridlock it had run into over Colombo in central Sri Lanka.
But on Monday, it managed to reach Puttalam, a little further north along the Lankan coast.
It has also made a decisive and crucial entry into south Arabian Sea, setting the stage for a likely onset over Kerala coast in the next two days.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) traced the northern limit of the monsoon aligned across the Puttalam lagoon on the northwest coast of Sri Lanka.
Seasonal rains have also propagated into more parts of the Maldives, the Comorin region, and southwest Bay of Bengal.
Conditions are favourable for the onset of the over Kerala during the next two days, the IMD said.
But global models are of the view that full-scale onset of the monsoon would take four or five days to materialise.
This is because typhoon Mawar in north-west Pacific, which is hand-holding the onset process here, would take as many days to weaken.
Only then can the monsoon flows de-link from Mawar and re-converge in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal.
The IMD too has said that rains along the west coast would scale up from the weekend (June 10).
A short-term outlook said that rain or thundershowers would lash many places in Lakshadweep Kerala and coastal Karnataka.
A similar forecast is valid over Tamil Nadu at one or two places, interior Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Konkan, Goa and Madhya Maharashtra.
The Bay of Bengal branch of the monsoon has triggered some of the heaviest rains in northeast India witnessed during the past 24 hours.
Cherrapunji in Assam recorded as much as 40 cm of rain overnight. Amini Divi in Lakshadweep recorded 11 cm as the Arabian Sea arm toyed with these islands.
Parts of Kerala and Mangalore on the southwest coast have received what are considered piloting thundershowers during this period.
Convective (rain-bearing) clouds were seen over the Andaman Sea, east-central and southeast Bay of Bengal and southeast and central Arabian Sea.