Thiruvananthapuram: With the low pressure over the Southeast Arabian Sea off the North Kerala coast making a strong comeback, the Meteorological Department has predicted that heavy rain will continue to lash across the state for the next four days.
The absence of thunder has triggered speculation that this year’s southwest monsoon had made an early onset.
However, Met director K. Santhosh said that the southwest monsoon would make its presence felt only by the first week of June as already predicted by the IMD.
The director said the cyclonic circulation is likely to become more marked and would move north-northeast in the next 24 hours.
Following the heavy rain in the last two days, all districts in the state had recorded excess rainfall, a rare occurrence during summer.
Nine districts recorded over 50 per cent excess rainfall from normal, which is termed unprecedented by sources in the Disaster Management Department. Kottayam and Kasargod, two districts that normally received below normal rainfall, have witnessed rainfall in excess of 108 and 122 per cent respectively.
However, generous summer showers have triggered fears of a weak monsoon.
“The southwest monsoon has shown a weakness during those years when heavy showers preceded it during the summer,” said Dr Sekhar Kuriakose, head (scientist) of State Emergency Operations Centre.
The phenomenon was witnessed in 2011 when rainfall was heavy during the summer but the monsoon was way short of normal.
The IMD has already warned that the impending monsoon could be below average at 93 per cent, impacted by the El Nino phenomenon.
The southwest rains were hit by El Nino weather pattern in 2009, when the four-month-long season turned the driest in nearly four decades.
The Disaster Management Wing, though it rules out a drought, has begun planning for such an eventuality.
