Kochi: The ‘hope fairy’ that rises from the cavernous depths of the Indian Ocean, that is the monsoon in the words of poet Ayyappa Panicker, has finally begun its annual flutter across the subcontinent. The Indian Meteorological Department has confirmed the sighting of the southwesterly winds over Kerala coast on Wednesday, seven days after they were supposed to make their appearance.
The 14 IMD stations for which the rainfall is being monitored for declaring the monsoon onset over Kerala have reported widespread rainfall for the last 48 hours with more than 60 percent of stations reporting rainfall on June 7 and 8, the IMD said on Wednesday.
Westerly/ west-southwesterly winds of the order of 30-40 kmph were observed up to 600 hPa (approximately up to 4.5km) over the South Arabian Sea.
“All the conditions for monsoon got fulfilled for the first time on Wednesday since the monitoring was started by IMD from May 10. As a result, the southwest monsoon has set in over Kerala on June 8.
The monsoon has further advanced into the remaining parts of South Arabian Sea, Maldives-Comorin area, most parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, some parts of south interior Karnataka, remaining parts of south Bay of Bengal and some parts of central Bay of Bengal,” an IMD official said.
Thiruvanathapuram witnessed 71.8 mm rain in the 24 hours till 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday, Punalur had 125 mm rain, Alappuzha 150.8 mm, Kottayam 36.8 mm, Kochi 59 mm, Kozhikode 16.8 mm and Kannur 72.6 mm in the 24 hours. However, the rain intensified in several parts of the state after that and IMD has come out with the measure on that. “Kerala is set to witness heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next 48 hours as a strong cloud band extends up to Goa along the Western Ghats region,” said Dr M.G. Manoj, research scientist with the newly-established Advanced Centre for Atmospheric Radar Research (ACARR) of Cochin University of Science and Technology
The conditions are favourable for further advance of southwest monsoon into some parts of central Arabian Sea, coastal Karnataka, remaining parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, some more parts of south interior Karnataka, some parts of south Andhra Pradesh and some more parts of central Bay of Bengal, the IMD official said.
