India's monsoon lashes Mumbai as rains arrive early

Mumbai: Lashing rains swamped India s financial capital Mumbai on Monday as the annual monsoon rains arrived some two weeks earlier than usual, accord...

Mumbai: Lashing rains swamped India's financial capital Mumbai on Monday as the annual monsoon rains arrived some two weeks earlier than usual, according to weather forecasters.

Heavy rains cooling temperatures -- welcomed by farmers for their crops but which cause havoc each year in cities by flooding transport infrastructure -- are normally expected in the southwestern state of Maharashtra in early June.

Mumbai weather chief Shubhangi Bhute, from the Indian Meteorological Department, said it was the earliest the rains had arrived since their records began in 2011.

"This is the earliest the monsoon has arrived in the state since then, so this is the earliest in 14 years," Bhute said.

South Asia is getting hotter and in recent years has seen shifting weather patterns, but scientists are unclear on how exactly a warming planet is affecting the highly complex monsoon.