Monsoon late by a week, for now

Jayanthi cautioned that the Met office is predicting the week-long delay on the current pace of the South-Westerly wind pattern. ‘‘A dramatic change in wind pattern or some other factor can advance it,’’ she said. Despite the delay in monsoon currents in the Andamans and the cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, the monsoon seems to be back on track. ‘‘The winds have already covered the Andamans,’’ Jayanthi said.

Meanwhile, an IMD statement in Delhi said with circulation patterns evolving rather slowly, the monsoon’s further advance across the Peninsula is likely to be delayed.

‘‘As of May 31, the northern limit of the South-West monsoon was running South of Kerala across Sri Lanka into East-Central Bay of Bengal,’’ said IMD. The monsoon covered some more parts of the East-Central Bay today where there is persistent clouding, showing conditions favour its advance towards Kerala in the next two-three days. The Arabian branch of South-West monsoon current, however, continues to be weak and it has not shown any signs of advance. Pre-monsoon rainfall activity over the Peninsula, a precursor to the onset of South-West monsoon over Kerala, has been practically absent so far.

A pronounced North-South trough extending from Bihar to Tamil Nadu has generated strong northwesterly winds leading to severe heatwave conditions over parts of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Orissa. However, this trough is now becoming less pronounced, which is likely to provide some respite from the heatwave.

Normally, the monsoon hits Kerala on June 1. The monsoon had entered the South Andaman sea and adjoining South-East Bay on May 16, which is about the usual time. After that it moved further to cover the whole of the Andaman sea, parts of South and East-Central bay, Maldives and nearby areas like southern parts of Sri Lanka. The initial delay was due to the disturbed circulation pattern over the Bay of Bengal. Later, the circulation pattern over the Bay normalised but the corresponding recovery did not take place over the Arabian Sea.