Monsoon likely to be delayed by 2 days, may hit Kerala by June 3: IMD

Skymet disagrees, says monsoon already arrived today

The much-awaited onset of the southwest monsoon is expected to be delayed by two days and the rains are now likely to hit the Kerala coast on June 3 instead of June 1, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

"The delay is because of the weak westerly winds near Kerala coast which is why rainfall and cloudiness is not increasing," Director General of IMD, Mritunjay Mohapatra, told Business Standard.

He said further that the depth of westerly winds also should increase to sustain rainfall.

The met meanwhile, added that due to strengthening of lower level southwesterly winds, fairly widespread rainfall activity with isolated heavy falls are very likely over northeastern states during next five days.

The normal onset date for the monsoon over Kerala is June 1. This marks the start of the four-month rainfall season for the country.

Earlier this month, the IMD had predicted the arrival of monsoon over Kerala by May 31 with an error margin of plus or minus five days.

Monsoon is expected to be normal this year.

In complete divergence, private weather forecasting agency, Skymet today said that the southwest monsoon has in fact already arrived over Kerala today.

"A set of environmental conditions need to be fulfilled as a criterion for the arrival of monsoon. By and large, all parameters have satisfied the required threshold, essentially the rainfall and depth and speed of westerly winds over the Southeast Arabian Sea and adjoining Equatorial Indian Ocean. Rainfall amounts are verified from the available data on the official website," Skymet said in a statement.

It added that in the absence of any major monsoon trigger, the onset may be slightly mild.