Monsoon to keep its date with Kerala

KOCHI: Monsoon will hit Kerala shortly and this time it is likely to advance in a normal manner, say weather watchers.As of now, all the conditions are favourable and there is no chance for a late monsoon. Pre-monsoon showers in the months of April and May were less compared to the previous years as the places other than Wayanad and Kasargod received only 27-28 per cent of rains.“The pre-monsoon rains we received were below normal. Now we have all the right triggers and conditions for a timely monsoon,” says C K Rajan, professor-in-charge, Chair for Climate and Environmental Changes, SCMS-Cochin, and former director Centre for Monsoon Studies, Cusat.He also said that this time chances are more for the monsoon to be normal. “As of  now the symptoms on the Arabian Sea indicate a normal monsoon.But if any low-pressure formation builds up in the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal the picture will change.”“The character of monsoon will change depending on the strength and movement of the formations,” he says.If there are no low-pressure formations capable of changing the direction of the monsoon flow, the rain will start in three-four days and advance in a normal way. Dr Rajan says slight nightly showers we are experiencing now are a part of the well-disposed climatic condition. “We have everything that will trigger the onset of a normal monsoon as conditions are becoming more and more favourable,” he says.