The Southwest monsoon arrived in India on Monday with heavy rainfall over several places in Kerala, marking the commencement of the four-month long rainfall season, the India Meteorological Department said.
“The southwest monsoon has made an onset over Kerala,” IMD director general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
The India Meteorological Department also declared the onset of Southwest Monsoon 2020 over Kerala in an official tweet.
The four-month monsoon season from June to September accounts for 75 per cent of rainfall in the country.
Private forecaster Skymet Weather on May 30 had declared arrival of monsoon, but the IMD had differed, saying conditions were not ripe then for such an announcement.
According to the IMD, temperature is expected to go down to 25 degrees Celsius during the day in Kerala’s Thiruvananthapuram.
In the wake of heavy rains predicted to lash Kerala in the next five days, the weather department has issued a yellow alert for nine districts – Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki, Malappuram and Kannur.
The state Met department has also issued heavy rainfall warnings for Kerala. “Thunderstorm with lightning and wind speed reaching 40 kmph in gusts accompanied by moderate rainfall is very likely to occur at in Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Kasaragod and Kannur,” it stated.
The IMD had earlier said that conditions were favourable for the onset of the monsoon over Kerala on June 1 due to the formation of Cyclone ‘Nisarga’ over Arabian Sea.
On April 15, Madhavan Rajeevan, Ministry of Earth Sciences Secretary had forecast that monsoon rains this year are likely to be normal at 100 per cent with a model error of 5 per cent.
The weather bureau is slated to issue the second stage Long Range Forecast (LRF) for South-West Monsoon Season (June – September) rainfall later in the day.
Meanwhile, the depression in the Arabian Sea is expected to further intensify into a cyclonic storm ‘Nisarga’ and cross north Maharashtra and Gujarat coasts between Harihareshwar in Raigard district and Daman on June 3, the IMD said on Monday.