The monsoon has advanced into South-East Arabian Sea, Maldives and the Comorin area, an India Met Department (IMD) update said this afternoon.
Conditions are becoming favourable for its further advance into Lakshadweep, Kerala and Tamil Nadu as well as more parts of the Arabian Sea during next 24 hours.
During the next two-three days, rains should enter parts of Coastal and Interior Karnataka as well as some more parts of Tamil Nadu, the IMD said.
Meanwhile, a low-pressure area off the Kerala coast has intensified. A counterpart 'low' is present over East-Central Bay of Bengal, which too may intensify soon.
Ideal settings
Together, they would make up the twin engines around which the monsoon would propel, the most ideal setting it can hope for but very rare in actual occurrence.
Given the context, the onset of the monsoon could be declared anytime, though the IMD has given a window extending to next 24 hours for this to happen.
Both ‘low’s are forecast to become depressions, with the one in the Arabian Sea likely moving along the West Coast up till Konkan–Mumbai, before it moves away once again to Oman. But by this time, it would have brought the monsoon along the entire West Coast, and with ample help from the Bay, pushed it into North-East and East-Central India.
While the ‘low’ in the Bay could be come a depression and travel towards Myanmar-Bangladesh, a successor ‘low’ would brew here and become a depression in no time. This depression would wade into the Andhra Pradesh coast, according to early forecasts, and do the monsoon would a world of good in terms of spreading itself out over entire peninsula.
‘Rainy impact’
All these are expected to happen during the first week of June under the watchful eyes of the Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave, preparing to exit the Indian Ocean. At no time in the recent past has a wet phase of the MJO been more kind to the onset phase of the monsoon, with as much ‘rainy impact’ to both the peninsular seas and the mainland.
Meanwhile, the ‘low’ over the Arabian Sea could go on to become a depression, or even a minor cyclone, by the time it reaches the Oman-UAE-Iran coast or the Red Sea in between. A number of global models too point to this likelihood, which might not make the situation in Oman, which has already bore the brunt of cyclone Mekunu, any better.
In fact, the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction goes on to draw a scenario of another likely storm heading into the region in the next 10 to 15 days. This would come about as a ‘low’ from the Bay of Bengal crosses into Central India, pushes into Gujarat and enters Arabian Sea, from where it propels likely towards the Red Sea.