Delay in arrival of Indian Monsoon
Recently, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said according to one of its estimates that this year the monsoon reached Kerala by June 3,whereas some time ago IMD had estimated the date of arrival of this monsoon in Kerala as 31 May.
The IMD has attributed such delay in monsoon to a western disturbance.
Key points
- According to a private weather forecasting agency ‘Skymet’, the monsoon is progressing at a normal pace. It reached the Andaman and Nicobar Islands on its fixed date on 21st May and thereafter it continued to move in a north-westerly direction.
- Conditions are favorable for further advance of Monsoon into more parts of South Peninsula and east-central Bay of Bengal. With this, timely progress of Monsoon is expected over Northeast India.
- According to IMD, this year monsoon will be normal. About 2 cm of rain is expected during the monsoon this year.
Monsoon enters India
- Usually the south-west monsoon reaches the Kerala coast on June 1stand soon between June 10 and 13; these humid winds reach Mumbai and Kolkata. By the middle of July, the entire subcontinent becomes under the influence of the south-west monsoon.
Monsoon
- The word monsoon is originally derived from the Arabic language ‘mausim’ which means ‘season’. Normally in India it is pronounced ‘Mausam’ in Hindi, but during heavy rains it becomes ‘Monsoon’.
- India is a hot climate country, 8 to 9 months out of 12 months of the year are normal or severe summer and rest 3 to 4 months are winter. In India, the intense rainy season begins with the scorching summer months of June and continues till September or sometimes October until the summer heat returns to normal.
Effect of monsoon in India
- In India, the monsoon season is the kharif season of agriculture, the areas where the land receives sufficient amount of rainwater, there are good prospects of crop production. But where there is a shortage of rainwater, crop yields are adversely affected.
- In the absence of monsoon rains, some areas become drought-prone and the life of the people there is destroyed, while the excess monsoon brings the destruction of floods in some areas. We have seen many such incidents in India in the last few years.
- More than half of India’s agricultural land is dependent on rain fed water, so monsoon rains are very important and useful for India. The natural water resources of irrigation are rivers, lakes, ponds, wells etc., from this monsoon rain.
India Meteorological Department (IMD)
- The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is the apex body of weather forecasting in India. It functions under the Ministry of Earth Sciences.
- It was established in The headquarter of IMD is located in New Delhi and its six major regional meteorological stations are located at Chennai, Guwahati, Kolkata, Mumbai, Nagpur, New Delhi.
Source – The Hindu
