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Vinson Kurian The South-West monsoon this year is expected to set in over Kerala on May 29, with a model error of four days, the India Met Department (IMD) announced on Friday. Last year, the seasonal rains had reached the State, the gateway for monsoon over mainland India, on May 30, exactly as the IMD had forecast.
The early onset of the monsoon, which is forecast to be normal this year, has brightened the prospects of farm and economic growth. The South-West monsoon, which delivers about 70 per cent of the country’s annual rainfall, is crucial for key kharif crops such as rice, cotton, oilseeds, pulses and sugarcane.
Pre-monsoon showers have been widespread, mainly in the South, where the sowing of crops such as rice, pulses and oilseeds has already commenced. Over half of the country’s farmlands are rainfed, and the South-West monsoon is critical.
Two arms
The monsoon approaches India and its territorial waters via two arms — the Bay of Bengal arm and the Arabian Sea arm. Both meet over Central India during June, the first full monsoon month.
The Bay arm makes the call first, over the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, 7-10 days before the Arabian Sea arm reaches Kerala on the South-West coast.
The IMD said on Friday the monsoon advances over the Andaman Sea normally around May 20, with a standard deviation of about one week.
Past data suggest that there is no association of the date of monsoon advance over the Andaman Sea, either with the date of monsoon onset over Kerala or with the seasonal monsoon rainfall over the country. Conditions are ‘likely to become favourable’ for the advance of monsoon into some parts of the Andaman Sea and the South-East Bay of Bengal around May 23, the IMD said.
Overall, the timeline is being pushed beyond May 20, largely due to the jump-start the Arabian Sea has managed to get this year — as it occasionally does, but not always with as much impact on the proceedings in the Bay as witnessed so far this year.
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