The monsoon climbed to an active phase over Kerala on Sunday, bringing heavy and widespread rain and further misery to those living in the coastal and low-lying areas in the State.
The India Meteorological Department, on Friday, forecast this active phase to continue for another two days (Monday and Tuesday). The weather can be “very severe” for the State during these days with continued widespread rain that can exceed 7 cm on the gauge in some places. The winds are forecast to remain strong along and off the coast, and fishermen have been warned against going to the sea. A low-pressure system over the northwest Bay of Bengal off the Odisha-West Bengal coast, which took shape on Saturday, continued to persist over the same location on Sunday, and this system on the eastern side of the peninsula is siphoning the westerly monsoon flow from the Arabian Sea across Kerala. An offshore trough is persisting right from the Maharashtra coast to the Kerala coast. Together, these two systems are causing heavy precipitation all the way up from the coastline to the Western Ghats areas of the State.
Among the centres where heavy downpour was recorded during the 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Sunday are the High Ranges stations such as Munnar (9 cm) and Idukki town (8 cm) and Vaithiri (7 cm) in Wayanad district. The usual pattern observed after each bout of active monsoon spell is for the heavy downpour in the High Ranges to last at least a couple of days after the downpour had weakened in the coastal areas. So the downpour in the High Ranges is likely to continue late into the week.
