The sun moved in and out of rainclouds over Kerala on a day of rain and sunshine on Wednesday.
Aluva received a heavy downpour of 14 cm during the 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday. Kanjirappally (8 cm), Kochi airport and Kottayam (7 cm each) also received heavy rainfall. Several other centres spread across the length of the State received rainfall measuring between 4 cm and 1 cm on the gauge.
The rains have not penetrated beyond the midlands so far this week. There have been a few good spells of rainfall during the course of the week along the plains stretching towards the Palakkad gap and also very isolated downpours in the highlands of Idukki. The month of May so far has been 10 per cent deficient in rainfall in the catchments of Kerala State Electricity Board's hydroelectric projects.
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The winds from the seas are yet to attain sufficient power to drive the rainclouds up the mountain areas of the Western Ghats. The wind direction too is yet to fall into the monsoon pattern, with a northwesterly flow pressing into the seasonal southwesterly winds. An eddying of currents is taking place around the meeting place of the two flows off the Kerala coast causing widespread rainfall in the coastal and midland areas of the State.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) in its bulletin on Wednesday predicted an increase in rainfall activity in Kerala and coastal Karnataka in the latter half of this week, suggesting its expectation of the monsoon breaking out over the subcontinent by then.