Met dept sees delay in southwest monsoon, Kerala to get rains on June 6

National weather agency, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), has forecast that southwest monsoon will arrive on the Kerala coast on June 6, “slightly delayed” than the normal onset date. But with a model error of four days, monsoon may hit the mainland any day between June 2 and June 10. 

Private forecaster Skymet has predicted the onset to happen on June 4. Independent weather observers too expect a delayed monsoon this time. 

Monsoon performance during the past five years shows that a delay is not necessarily associated with deficient rains. The best rainfall year in the last five years was 2016, and though the monsoon arrived on June 8 that year, rains were 97 per cent of normal, though not well spread across regions. 

IMD has been quite accurate in predicting the onset date. In the last 14 years, actual onset date was incorrect only in one instance. 

Experts and scientists from the IMD said that a delayed monsoon arrival has no bearing on the advance of the southwest monsoon over the entire country or its regional spread. Progress of sowing or agricultural output cannot be predicted or surmised from onset date either. 

Current thermal circulation and convective patterns over northern and northwest India are dominated by western disturbances among others. This condition is not conducive for formation of a pressure gradient pulls the winds flowing north of the equator to India from the southwest direction. 

The met department has been issuing operational forecasts for the date of monsoon onset over Kerala from 2005. An indigenously developed statistical model with a model error of ± 4 days is used for the purpose. 

The model uses six parameters to get the probable onset date. They are: minimum temperatures over northwest India, pre-monsoon rainfall peak over south peninsula, outgoing long wave radiation (OLR) over South China Sea, lower tropospheric zonal wind over southeast Indian ocean, upper tropospheric zonal wind over the east equatorial Indian Ocean, and OLR over the south-west Pacific region.

Delayed monsoon doesn’t mean deficient rains

Year	Forecast Onset Date	Actual Onset Date	Seasonal rainfall as % of normal
2014	5th June	6th June	88
2015	30th May	5th June	86
2016	7th June	8th June	97
2017	30th May	30th May	95
2018	29th May	29th May	91
2019*	6th June	Yet to happen	96

 

Source: IMD

Note: * Forecast only