Hyderabad: Eight days after its June 1 schedule, the south-west monsoon has finally entered Kerala, as confirmed by the Indian Meteorological Department on Saturday.
Skymet Weather said all criteria indicating the onset of the monsoon were met on June 7. And while Skymet had predicted the onset date to be June 7, the IMD had predicted the onset to occur on June 8.
Accordingly, Telangana state and Andhra Pradesh can expect to receive the monsoon by June 15, with a margin of error of two days.
IMD Hyderabad director Y.K. Reddy said, “The southwest monsoon will advance into Telangana state and coastal Andhra Pradesh by June 15 and cover the state in 24 hours thereafter — versus the usual 48-72 hours that it takes to cover the state after entry.
Its progress, however, depends on various parameters, primarily the intensity of the Arabian Sea winds.”
The IMD further stated that the rain registered in the city and the rest of the state were not monsoon showers but the result of the thunderstorm activity that had previously been forecast by the weather department. Mr Mahesh Palawat from Skymet Weather, however, claimed that the monsoon has had a “weak onset” and is therefore expected to move “sluggishly”.
The onset of the monsoon was announced after calculating certain parameters like minimum temperatures over northwest India, pre-monsoon rainfall peaking over the peninsula, Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) over the South China Sea and the southwest Pacific, lower tropospheric zonal wind over the southeast Indian Ocean, wind in the upper troposphere over the east equatorial Indian Ocean, and OLR over the southwest Pacific.
The IMD has maintained monsoon will be normal for 2019. The delay in monsoon has no co-relation to the overall quantum of the rainfall.
