It's official. The sporadic showers in Kerala this week, so far dismissed as ‘‘cyclonic disturbances’’, are actually the monsoon hitting the Indian coast. And, for the first time in 10 years, the rains have come two weeks in advance.Since May 18, Kerala has received as much as 10 cm of rain. The severe cyclonic disturbances that built over Bay of Bengal and moved to Myanmar may have weakened after a few showers, but these have established monsoon circulation.‘‘It was expected that after the cyclonic system died, so would the monsoon-like system. The good news is that it subsisted,’’ says S K Srivastava, Director General, Indian Metereological Department.Besides the circulation over Bay of Bengal, the monsoon trough over the Western Ghats is also well in place. This means early relief from heat in not just Kerala but almost the entire Penisular India—Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh—that is awash with unexpected showers now.The rains are expected to hit the North-East next, maybe within 48 hours, as monsoon clouds are hovering over the region. Heavy rains are expected in all the North-eastern states.However, for Delhi, that is reeling under a heat wave, there may not be an early respite. The Met Department cautions that early monsoon in Kerala does not mean the Capital will get showers two weeks in advance too, as the monsoon patters could change any time.For Peninsular India, however, the news couldn’t be better. Apart from the heat, it has also been battling drought. In the past few days though, North Interior Karnataka and South Interior Karnataka have got 13 mm and 386 mm of rain.In its annual forecast, the Met Department had predicted that chances of drought were only 4 per cent this year, and the monsoon was going to be normal.
