After an early onset of Southwest Monsoon into most parts of Andaman Sea, true to the predictions of Skymet Weather, weathermen and agriculturists across the country are now closely observing further developments of the Monsoon line and its likely arrival into Kerala. And rain in Kerala in the last 24 hours has further raised hopes of everyone.
According to latest weather update by Skymet Meteorology Division in India, Kochi yesterday recorded traces of rain and Alapuzha recoded 1 mm of rainfall, however Thiruvananthapuram remained dry with partly cloudy skies.
Though light rain occurred in many pockets of Kerala last evening, it failed to bring much needed relief from the hot and humid weather in the state. The maximum temperature here has been settling 2 to 3 degrees above the normal average, between 33⁰C to 35⁰C, due to lack of rainfall since the 10th of May. Nights too are warm with minimums lying in the range of 26⁰C to 27⁰C and the humidity has been as high as 80%.
Further forecasts suggest light to very light rainfall (below 10 mm) is expected to in Kerala for the next three to four days, picking up gradually towards the end of the week or start of next week.
“Kerala is nearing its onset date and therefore pre-Monsoon rain will become more frequent, and could shortly convert into Monsoon showers”, says AVM(Retd) G.P Sharma.
Skymet Weather on the 14th of May had predicted an early onset of Southwest Monsoon over Kerala. The date was predicted to be 28th of May against the usual onset date of 1st June. Whereas earlier in April, Skymet had released its Monsoon foreshadow for 2014, where it confirmed the coming Monsoon to be ‘below normal’ at 94% (error margin of ± 4%) of the Long Period Average (LPA) of 896 mm for the four-month period from June to September.
Weather records show, barring year 2012 and 2013, the onset of Southwest Monsoon into Kerala in the last few years has always been earlier than the usual date. In 2013 Southwest Monsoon had set over Kerala on the 1st of June and in 2012 it set on the 5th of June, the same date proposed by Indian Meteorology Department for the onset of Southwest Monsoon over Kerala this year.
In year 2011, 2010 and 2009, the vital Southwest Monsoon set over Kerala on 29th May, 31st May and on the 23rd of May, respectively.
