Monsoon arrives in Kerala ahead of schedule
The Hindu
Southwest monsoon arrives in Kerala early, pushing further into neighboring states, with above-normal rainfall predicted for India.
The Southwest monsoon has arrived in Kerala, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a statement on Saturday (May 24, 2025). This is a week earlier than the normal onset date for the monsoon and three days earlier than the department’s predicted date of May 27. This is also the earliest the monsoon has reached Kerala since 2009.
Also read: Kerala rain updates on May 24, 2025
For context, in 2024, the southwest monsoon set in over Kerala on May 30, two days before normal and a day before the forecast date of May 31, 2025.
The monsoon currents are expected to push the monsoon further into Goa, parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, more parts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, parts of the west-central and north Bay of Bengal, some parts of northeastern India, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, and Sikkim within the next three days, the IMD said.
The IMD has defined criteria for declaring the monsoon onset. At least nine of the 14 meteorological stations at Minicoy, Amini, Thiruvananthapuram, Punalur, Kollam, Allapuzha, Kottayam, Kochi, Thrissur, Kozhikode, Thalassery, Kannur, Kudulu, and Mangalore should report rainfall of 2.5 milimeters or more for two consecutive days. There should be strong ‘westerlies’ (middle-atmosphere winds) at a height of 3-4 kilometers from atmospheric sea level, and the outgoing longwave radiation (OLR – a measure of sunlight deflected by cloud cover) should be at least 200 W/m² (watts per square metre).
A factor that could have aided the monsoon’s early onset was a pre-cyclonic storm forming over the Konkan-Goa coast that is expected to make landfall late on Saturday (May 24, 2025).
The monsoon’s early arrival in Kerala does not necessarily mean that all parts of India will see an early arrival. For that to happen, the strength of the monsoon currents has to be continuously sustained. In 2009, despite the monsoon’s early arrival in Kerala, India reported a 23% shortfall in its monsoon quota (June-September).
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