Cyclone Biparjoy may affect monsoon in Kerala: IMD

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday notified that a depression over the southeast Arabian Sea is likely to intensify into a cyclonic storm within the next six hours. The depression reportedly lay about 920 km west-southwest of Goa, 1,120 km south-southwest of Mumbai, 1,160 km south of Porbandar, and 1,520 km south of Karachi, Pakistan, at 5:30am.

According to reports, the storm has been named Cyclone Biparjoy in Bangladesh. The met office on Monday said that the formation of the cyclone would critically affect the advance of the monsoon toward the Kerala coast. However, officials did not give the expected date of the arrival of the monsoon. Last month, the IMD predicted the monsoon to reach Kerala on Sunday (June 4).

Reportedly, private forecasting agency Skymet Weather said the monsoon would reach Kerala on Thursday or Friday, but it is expected to be a "meek and mild entry." This, however, does not mean that the monsoon will reach other parts of India late, reports said. The IMD had previously predicted that this year the country would experience normal rainfall despite the evolving El Nino conditions.