Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: MONSOON rains are expected to hit India’s southern coast on May 27, five days earlier than usual, marking the earliest arrival in at least five years, the weather office said, raising hopes for bumper harvests of crops such as rice, corn, and soybean.
The monsoon, the lifeblood of the country’s $4 trillion economy, delivers nearly 70 per cent of the rain that India needs to water farms and recharge aquifers and reservoirs. Nearly half of country’s farmland, without any irrigation cover, depends on the annual June-September rains to grow a number of crops.
Summer rains usually begin to lash the southernmost coasts of Kerala state around June 1 and spread across the whole country by mid-July, triggering the planting of crops such as rice, corn, cotton, soybeans, and sugarcane.
The monsoon onset over Kerala is likely to be on May 27, with a model error of plus/minus four days, the India Meteorological Department has said. Last year, the monsoon reached the coast of Kerala on May 30, and overall summer rains were the highest since 2020, helping the country recover from a drought of 2023.
The India Meteorological Department last month forecast above-average monsoon rains for the second straight year in 2025. The department defines average or normal rainfall as ranging between 96% and 104% of a 50-year average of 87 cm (35 inches) for the fourmonth season.
