By IANS,
New Delhi : The eagerly-awaited monsoon, which brings respite from the blistering summer heat, has already reached the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and would break out over Kerala at least three days earlier than normal, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said Wednesday.
“Monsoon’s onset over Kerala is likely to be May 29,” the met department said.
The usual date for the monsoon to break over the Kerala coast every year is June 1.
“With the strengthening and deepening of monsoon winds and widespread rainfall activity, south-west monsoon advanced into south-east Bay of Bengal, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, and the north Andaman Sea on May 12, almost eight days in advance,” said the IMD, which functions under the ministry of earth sciences.
It, however, said that there was an error margin of four days about its forecast. In 2007, the IMD predicted May 24 as the date of the monsoon’s onset over Kerala. But monsoon came to Kerala four days later.
The agency said that while forecasting the 2008 monsoon, it has used an indigenously developed statistical model based on five indicators, including minimum temperature over north-west India, pre-monsoon rainfall peak over south peninsula, and outgoing long wave radiation over south China Sea.
India has predicted near normal monsoon during the south-west monsoon season (June to September) this year.
Quantitatively, the monsoon season rainfall is likely to be 99 percent of the long period average with a model error of plus/minus five percent, the IMD has said.