Pedestrians hold umbrellas as they walk on a roadside amid rainfall in Kochi, Kerala. (PTI)Weather Forecast Update Live News: The Southwest monsoon will be normal and quantitatively be 103 per cent of the Long Period Average (LPA), according to the second stage Long Range Forecast issued by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday.
Notably, it will be the seventh consecutive year when the country would receive normal rainfall during June to September months. Previously, India has recorded consecutive normal monsoons for 12 years between 1953 – 1964 and 1988 – 1999, four years between 1975 – 1978 , 2005 – 2008 and 2010 – 2013. After two deficient monsoons in 2014 and 2015, there have been six years of normal rainfall since 2016. This includes two consecutive above normal rainfall years recorded in 2019 (110 per cent of LPA) and 2020 (109 per cent of LPA).
Effectively, it has been upgraded from 99 per cent as stated earlier by IMD in the first stage LRF released in April this year. Starting this year, the IMD is following the downgraded seasonal LPA value of 87 cm.
The southwest monsoon is likely to set in over Kerala on May 27, well ahead of its normal date of June 1, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced on Friday (May 13). If the forecast turns out to be accurate, this will be the earliest onset of the monsoon over Kerala since at least 2009. There can be “a model error of four days on either side”, the IMD said.
What does the “onset of monsoon” mean?The onset of the monsoon over Kerala marks the beginning of the four-month, June-September southwest monsoon season over India, which brings more than 70 per cent of the country’s annual rainfall. The onset of the monsoon is a significant day in India’s economic calendar. (Read more)
The efforts to clear uprooted trees and fallen branches continued in Lutyens' Delhi on Wednesday with several teams of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) at work, according to officials.
Delhi lost over 290 trees, some of them decades-old, during Monday's fierce thunderstorm, prompting the civic agencies to launch special drives to clear the city roads. Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena called for a thorough review of the reasons for the uprooting of trees to ensure that this does not happen again.
"The work is being done on a war footing to clear the uprooted trees and branches from the roads to ensure vehicular movement is not affected," a senior NDMC official said. According to data shared by the NDMC's Horticulture Department, Lutyens' Delhi lost at least 77 trees and 58 big branches broke off in the fierce thunderstorm and heavy rains in the national capital. (PTI)