Southwest monsoon missed its date with the Kerala coast on Thursday but a top weather scientist sought to play the incident down saying it was not a "sign of worry.' "True, the onset over Kerala has not happened,' Ajit Tyagi, Director General of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said here. The IMD had earlier forecast that the southwest monsoon will hit the Kerala coast on May 29, four days ahead of its normal June 1 onset.

Though officially the onset of monsoon in the country is yet to be declared, the northern limit of monsoon has touched the extreme south/ southeast part of Bangladesh close to Mizoram. The normal date of onset of monsoon over Kerala Coast is June 1, while over the city of Guwahati, the onset normally takes place on June 5. By June 6, NE region is generally covered by monsoon. However, variation of seven days in this respect is quite possible, said H Pathak, Director of the Regional Meteorology Centre (RMC) here.

Here is some cheering news on the monsoon front. The countdown has finally begun for its onset over Kerala. According to the India Meteorological Department, conditions are fast becoming ripe for the system to set in during the next 3-4 days. The normal date of the onset is June 1. Experts at the IMD said numerical weather prediction models indicated that the west-south-westerly cross-equatorial wind flows from the southern hemisphere, which bring in the monsoon, were steadily becoming faster and deeper. Wind speed

Monday and Tuesday have been the coolest days during the month of May this year in the region. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicts the weather is going to more or less remain equally pleasant for the next three days-Wednesday, Thursday and Friday-as well.

S&T, agriculture ministries hold the key to exploiting a good monsoon to augment food production

With southwest monsoon moving almost eight days in advance over Bay of Bengal and adjoining regions, the Indian Meteorological Department has predicted its onset over Kerala on May 29

The India Meteorological Department on Wednesday forecast that the onset of the South-west Monsoon over Kerala is likely on May 29, with a model error of plus or minus four days. In other words, the monsoon could enter the Indian landmass between May 25 and June 2. The normal date of onset over Kerala is June 1. Meanwhile, with the strengthening and deepening of the monsoon winds and widespread rainfall activity, the monsoon has already entered the waters surrounding the country.

THE much-awaited monsoon is likely to hit the Kerala coast on May 29 this year. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), using an indigenously developed forecast model, maintained on Wednesday that the forecast implied a model error of +/- four days from that date. The mean monsoon onset date over Kerala is June 1, two days later.

The revelation by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) that eight of the 10 warmest years on record since 1901 have been in the last one decade and that all years since 1993, barring one, have clocked higher than normal temperature establish beyond doubt that India's climate has already changed on account of global warming

THE movement of Nargis, the cyclone, is all set to raise the heat in Chennai in the next few days. Nargis, situated 550 km eastnortheast of Chennai, is predicted to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm and move towards the northerly direction and then turn northeast towards Bangladesh. This effectively means hopes of rain that people harboured, looking at cloudy skies, have been dashed. Chennai is unlikely to get even the isolated showers or thundershowers predicted earlier.

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