Monsoon likely to be delayed this year, arrival expected on June 6: IMD

16 May 2019 Evaluate

Dampening prospects of higher farm and economic growth, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that the monsoon is likely to be delayed this year as its arrival expected on June 6, five days after its normal onset date. It added that this year, the statistical model forecast suggests that the monsoon onset over Kerala is likely to be slightly delayed. It also said conditions are becoming favourable for advance of southwest monsoon over the southern part of Andaman Sea, Nicobar Islands and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal during May 18-19.

The normal onset date for monsoon over Kerala is June 1, which also marks the official commencement of the four-month rainfall season. If the monsoon arrives late, it will be third such instance since 2014 when it arrived on June 5, followed by June 6 in 2015 and June 8 in 2016. Though, it said that the delay in the arrival of monsoon may not necessarily have an impact on the overall rainfall. Last year, it had hit Kerala on May 29, three days before the normal onset date. Yet, the country received ‘below-normal’ rainfall.

Similarly, in 2017, the monsoon arrived in Kerala on May 30, but the overall rainfall was 95% of the long period average (LPA), which falls under the below normal category. Besides, in its initial forecast released in April, the IMD had predicted a near-normal rainfall with an LPA of 96%, which falls on the border of ‘below-normal’ and ‘normal’ rainfall category.

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