Skymet expects a good monsoon over western and southern India.
Houses in low lying areas of Kerala were flooded in the heavy rains, while the accompanying strong winds uprooted trees, damaged homes and caused power disruptions, throwing normal way of life into disarray across the state.
However, there was no report of any major damage or casualty so far even as the landfall process started more than an hour ago, the official said.
Flight services at Mumbai airport were severely impacted on Monday due to low visibility after heavy rains in the city, leading to runway operations being shut for over an hour and approximately 50 flights being cancelled, sources said.
In view of the discharge of water from the Khadakwasla, Mulshi, Pavana and other dams in the Pune region, Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde directed authorities to be alert and shift people from dangerous zones to safer places.
'The intensity and frequency of heatwaves will be much higher than in previous years over Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.'
"The monsoon has reached Ratnagiri over the country's west coast. It will remain there for the week before moving on. This year's monsoon will be 96 per cent normal, with an error margin of 5 per cent," Indian Meteorological Department director B P Yadav said.
States are mandated to develop and implement 'heat HAPs' for prevention of heat-induced diseases. But most do not go beyond standard advisory on heat prevention.
More than 150 express/passenger trains running through South Eastern Railway jurisdiction have been cancelled in view of the severe cyclonic storm, an SER official said.
'A few answers for the reason of the crash will be known -- whether it was a technical fault, design issue, human error etc.'
A siren giving a warning about tsunami erroneously started playing from the Early Warning Dissemination System at Porvorim near Panaji, triggering panic among the local residents, an official said on Thursday.
Western Railway stated that local train services were running normally on Monday morning, however, commuters claimed trains were running late by 5 to 10 minutes.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a high-level meeting to review preparedness for the hot weather condition in the upcoming summer season and called for preparing separate awareness material for different stakeholders like common citizens, medical professionals, local body authorities and disaster response teams.
As weather patterns grow more unpredictable due to climate crisis, India is taking a giant leap with "Mission Mausam" to improve weather understanding and forecasting through expanded observation networks, better modeling and advanced tools like AI and machine learning.
So far, over 30 people have died across Northeastern states due to heavy rainfalls, floods and landslides, according to media reports.
Athletes and climate experts have expressed concerns that extreme heat could lead to severe health issues, including the risk of sportspeople collapsing or, in the worst-case scenarios, dying during the events.
An Indian think-tank, which aims to forecast the annual rainfall based on an analysis of historical data said on Wednesday that the overall monsoon this year would be 15 per cent below the 120-year long-term average.\n\n\n\n
'We have not even used 0.1% of the available resources.'
Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and its suburbs on Thursday, causing waterlogging on roads in some areas that led to traffic snarls and also delayed local train operations.
Mohapatra said there is a 40 per cent chance of a normal rainfall, 22 per cent above normal, 12 per cent excess and 18 per cent below normal.
An earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale hit Pakistan-occupied-Gilgit late on Tuesday night and resultant mild tremors were felt in Doda and Kishtwar districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
A district-wise data on the temperatures of the day.
A district-wise data on the temperatures of the day.
The department said Marathwada, Central Maharashtra and Central India will benefit the most.
Several areas of Tamil Nadu remain inundated after hours of heavy to moderate rainfall in the region. Water entered houses and markets in the low-lying residential areas of Erode district due to heavy rainfall throughout the night.
Mercury hovered around 40 degrees Celsius in large parts of the country on Monday as the Indian meteorological department predicted heat wave conditions in parts of east India over the next four days and the northwest region over the next two days.
Over the past few days, deaths due to heat stroke have been reported from different parts of the country including Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha.
IMD Director General Mrutunjay Mohapatra said the department's modelling indicate formation of a cyclonic storm around May 9, but its movement and intensification may be determined after the low pressure area actually forms on May 7.
The infamous Indian summer lives up to its reputation as the heat wave continues to grip the country.
He said scientists have noticed a trend of very deep cloud systems developing over the southeast Arabian Sea, and added that sometimes, these systems intrude into the land, like in 2019.
Delayed by 10 days due to cyclone Biparjoy, southwest monsoon is likely to progress further and hit Mumbai between June 23 and 25, the India meteorological department said on Wednesday.
ISRO chairman S Somanath said the success gave the space agency "greater confidence," as the GSLV will be next deployed in the NISAR mission, a collaborative effort with the US' NASA.
The IMD said that rainfall over India in August and September would be around 106 percent of the long-period average of 422.8 mm.
Map showing how much rainfall various districts of India received.
Southwest monsoon hit Kerala on Friday marking the start of the rainy season, four days after its normal onset date.
Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said the borewell in his house in Sadashivanagar in the state capital has gone dry for the first time. This happened despite the fact that Sadashivanagar is located next to Sankey Lake.
"Conditions are favourable for the onset of southwest monsoon over Kerala and its further advance into some more parts of south Arabian sea, remaining parts of Maldives - Comorin area, some parts of Tamil Nadu and some more parts of Bay of Bengal during the next 24 hours," said a statement by the Indian Meteorological Department.
India is likely to see above-normal rainfall in the four-month monsoon season (June to September) with cumulative rainfall rainfall estimated at 106 percent of the long-period average (87 cm), he said.
This is the first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal this pre-monsoon season.
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