The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that the Southwest Monsoon has finally arrived in Kerala on Monday (June 1), precisely on the day it was expected to hit the coastal state.
Earlier this week, the weather department said that monsoon rains were likely to make an onset over Kerala on June 1. This was a revision of its earlier onset forecast of June 5. Last year in 2019, the monsoon had hit Kerala on June 8.
"Southwest Monsoon has set in over Kerala today, the 1st June 2020," the weather bureau stated.
The weather department's director-general Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, also said, "The southwest monsoon has made an onset over Kerala."
Speaking to a news agency, Anand Kumar Sharma, Deputy Director-General, IMD said, "As forecast earlier, Monsoon has arrived in Kerala today."
"The depression in the southwest Arabian Sea is likely to concentrate into a deep depression in next 12 hours and in next 24 hours it is going to become a cyclone," Anand Kumar Sharma added.
India to receive normal monsoon season this year
Conditions have been favourable for the monsoon's onset over Kerala due to the formation of Cyclone 'Nisarga' over the Arabian Sea.
On April 15, Madhavan Rajeevan, Secretary of Ministry of Earth Sciences forecast that monsoon rains this year are likely to be reasonable at 100 per cent of the long period average with a model error of 5 per cent.
The IMD will issue a second stage long-range forecast for the monsoon later in the day.
(With agency inputs)
