Early Arrival of Southwest Monsoon

Early Arrival of Southwest Monsoon

Subject : Geography

Context : Recently, the southwest monsoon has progressed rapidly to cover two-thirds of the country just about 10 days after it broke over the Kerala coast.

Concept :

• The northern limit of the monsoon (NLM) continued to pass through Diu, Surat, Nandurbar, Bhopal, Nagaon, Hamirpur, Barabanki, Bareilly, Saharanpur, Ambala, and Amritsar.
• The monsoon has arrived 7 to 10 days ahead of its scheduled date across some areas of south peninsular and central India.
• The monsoon has missed Northwest India i.e. Gujarat, Rajasthan, western Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab and Delhi so far.

Reasons for early arrival of southwest monsoon

• The Cyclone Yaas, formed in the Bay of Bengal during May, helped the monsoon make a timely arrival over the Andaman Sea.
• The fast progress of southwest monsoon is mainly due to:

Strong westerly winds from the Arabian Sea; and

Formation of a low-pressure system over the North Bay of Bengal

• The monsoon currents strengthened and it advanced into the Northeast, West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar and parts of Chhattisgarh.
• An off-shore trough has helped the monsoon arrive early over Karnataka, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and southern Gujarat.

Causes of delay in southwest monsoon over Northwest India

• The monsoon becomes active over Northwest India only when the monsoon currents (either from the Arabian Sea or the Bay of Bengal) reach the region.
• The monsoon progress will remain slow as the arrival of monsoon currents over Northwest India is not expected to happen soon.
• A stream of mid-latitude westerly winds is approaching Northwest India, which will hinder the monsoon advancement in the immediate coming days.