After five days of being virtually stalled in its tracks by cyclone Phet, the southwest monsoon made a surprise arrival in Bangalore, even before it set in over the Karnataka coast.
This will be the third time in recorded meteorological history that the monsoon has taken this trajectory — the last two occasions being in 1982 and 2000, Director of the Meteorological Centre B. Puttanna said. Several parts of south-interior Karnataka received monsoon rainfall on Friday and Saturday, including Chikmagalur, Mysore, Chamarajanagar, Kolar and Chitradurga.
“Coastal Karnataka will receive monsoon rain within a day or two,” said Mr. Puttanna. He said that it was “very rare” for the monsoon onset to bypass the coast before arriving in south-interior Karnataka. “But as a result, the city has received monsoon on the normal date, June 5.”
This aberration is not on account of the cyclone, said Mr. Puttanna, who attributed it to the pressure gradient in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea and ocean temperatures. Thundershower activity has been intense over the State, he added. “In the first five days of the month alone, the city has recorded almost the entire month's quota of rain — Bangalore has recorded 69 mm, when the normal rainfall for all of June is 80 mm.”
Heavy rain may occur at isolated places over coastal and south-interior Karnataka during the next two days.
