Why India will witness a timely monsoon this year

New Delhi, May 05: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said that this year the country would witness a timely monsoon due to the depression over the Andaman Sea.

According to Ananda Kumar Das, in-charge of the IMD's cyclones monitoring, the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), which appears as a band of the clouds encircling the globe near the equator and is responsible for wet and dry seasons in the tropics is very active.

Das cited by Hindustan Times also said that this indicates a monsoon surge will be established soon.

"The depression will help establish the cross-equatorial flow. The formation of the depression will eventually also help monsoon arrive around the normal time over Kerala around June 1 with an error margin of +/-5 days," Das also said.

The monsoon normally arrives in Kerala around June 1 and covers the rest of India by mid-July and brings about 70 per cent of India's annual rainfall.

The rainfall is expected to be mostly uniformly distributed. Normal to above normal seasonal rainfall is most likely over many areas of northern parts of Peninsular India and adjoining Central India, over foothills of Himalayas and some parts of Northwest India, the IMD had said last month.

Below normal rainfall is likely over many areas of Northeast India, some areas of Northwest India and southern parts of the South Peninsula. White shaded areas within the land area represent climatological probabilities, the IMD also said.