On Sunday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said it anticipated a further delay of three to four days for rains to begin.
“Conditions (are) becoming favourable with the increase in westerly winds over the south Arabian Sea. Also, the depth of westerly winds is gradually increasing and today, June 4, the depth of westerlies has reached up to 2.1 kilometres above the mean sea level,” the IMD statement read.
In mid May, Met department had said the rains might arrive in Kerala by June 4 this year.
As per IMD’s logs, the southwest monsoon normally sets in over the state on June 1. It shows a standard deviation of about seven days.
The cloud mass over the southeast Arabian sea is increasing, IMD said. It said it expected favourable conditions over Kerala to further develop in the next three-four days.Further updates will be given on Monday, it added.Scientists, meanwhile, said they didn’t expect the monsoon delay to hit kharif sowing and total rainfall this year.
Last year, the rains had arrived in the state on May 29. It was June 3 in 2021, June 1 in 2020, June 8 in 2019 and May 29 in 2018.
Earlier this year, the IMD had said India would likely get normal rainfall during the southwest monsoon season despite the developing El Nino conditions. The El Nino conditions this year comes after three La Nina years at a stretch. La Nina — the opposite of El Nino — typically causes good monsoon rainfall.
As per the predictions for this year, Northwest India is likely to get ee normal to below-normal rainfall. East and northeast, central, and south peninsula are expected to get normal rainfall — 94-106% of the long-period average (87 centimetres).
It may be noted here that the IMD considers rainfall between 96 and 104 per cent of a 50-year average of 87 cm as ‘normal’. Rains 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.
Normal rainfall is crucial for agriculture in India — as much as 52% of the net cultivated area is dependent on it. It is also critical for the replenishment of drinking water reservoirs.
In India, rain-fed farming is responsible for 40% of total food production. That makes it a crucial contributor to the country’s food security as well as overall economy.