MUMBAI – Monsoon rain reached the coast of India’s south-western Kerala state on Thursday, offering relief to farmers after a delay of more than a week and marking its latest arrival in four years.

The monsoon, the lifeblood of India’s US$3 trillion (S$4 trillion) economy, delivers nearly 70 per cent of the rain needed to water the country’s farms and recharge reservoirs and aquifers.

It also brings relief from the worst of the hot weather.

In the absence of irrigation systems, nearly half of India’s farmland depends on the June-September rains and their late arrival could delay the planting of rice, cotton, corn, soya bean and sugar cane, traders said.

In a statement, the state-run India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the “south-west monsoon has set in over Kerala today, June 8, 2023, against the normal date of June 1”.

This year, the IMD had expected the rains to arrive over the state’s coast on June 4, but the formation of severe cyclonic storm Biparjoy in the Arabian Sea delayed their onset.

The IMD added that over the next 18 hours, the cyclone would gradually intensify further, with winds gusting up to 170kmh, and it would move approximately north-westwards over the next three days.

The department advised fishing workers to return to the coast and avoid fishing in the central and northern Arabian Sea until next Wednesday.

The IMD confirmed that the monsoon had begun after taking into account rainfall measured at weather stations in Kerala and westerly wind speeds.

Conditions are favourable for the monsoon to advance into the central Arabian Sea and some parts of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states, the IMD said.

India received 57 per cent less rainfall than average in the first week of June, weather office data showed on Wednesday, reflecting the delayed arrival of the wet weather.

The monsoon would make progress in coming days in the south, but central and western areas could get little rain over the next two weeks, said a senior IMD official, who declined to be identified as he was not authorised to talk to the media.

The weather office has forecast below-average rain for the month of June, with the monsoon expected to pick up later.

But for the entire four-month monsoon season, the IMD has forecast an average amount of rain despite the formation of a possible El Nino weather phenomenon.

India experienced below-average rainfall during most previous El Nino years, sometimes leading to severe drought that destroyed crops and forced the authorities to limit the export of some grains. REUTERS