PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, June 5: Weathermen in Jharkhand are keeping their fingers crossed as the south-west monsoon missed its onset date in Kerala on Sunday (June 4).
Now, the India Meteorological Department ( IMD ) is anticipating a further delay of monsoon in the Indian mainland by three to four days.
Under normal circumstances southwest monsoon sets in over Kerala coast on June 1 with a standard deviation of about seven days.
Last year (2022) monsoon had hit the Kerala coast three days in advance on May 29.
In mid-May, IMD- New Delhi had predicted the arrival of monsoon in Kerala by June 4.
Talking to this portal IMD officials said that conditions are becoming favourable with the increase in westerly winds over the south Arabian Sea.
“The cloud cover over the southeast Arabian Sea is also increasing. We expect that these favourable conditions for monsoon onset over Kerala will further improve during the next three-four days, ” said an IMD official in New Delhi.
Statistics revealed that the southeast monsoon had hit the Kerala coast on May 29 last year, June 3 in 2021, June 1 in 2020, June 8 in 2019 and May 29 in 2018.
India is expected to get normal rainfall during the southwest monsoon season despite the evolving El Nino conditions, the IMD had earlier declared.
Northwest India is expected to see normal to below-normal rainfall.
East and northeast, central, and south peninsula are expected to receive normal rainfall at 94-106 per cent of the long-period average of 87 centimetres.
Notably, rainfall between 96 and 104 per cent of a 50-year average of 87 cm is considered ‘normal’.
Rainfall less than 90 per cent of the long-period average is considered ‘deficient’, between 90 per cent and 95 per cent is ‘below normal’, between 105 per cent and 110 per cent is ‘above normal’ and more than 100 per cent is ‘excess’ precipitation.
El Nino, which is the warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean near South America, is generally associated with the weakening of monsoon winds and dry weather in India.
The El Nino conditions this year follow three consecutive La Nina years. La Nina, which is the opposite of El Nino, typically brings good rainfall during the monsoon season.
With the delay of monsoon’s arrival in Kerala weathermen at IMD’s Ranchi Meteorological Centre were apprehensive of a further delay of the season of rains in Jharkhand.
” We were expecting the arrival of monsoon this year in Jharkhand after June 20 but now it seems it will further get delayed, ” said a weather analyst at Ranchi Meteorological Centre.
