RAINS LIKELY TO START IN THE MONTH OF JUNE IN GOA

PANJIM: If all goes well, the southwest monsoon is expected to advance over Goa during the first week of June, but pre-monsoon showers are most likely before the end of the month, as conditions are quite favourable for both, meteorological department sources said.

The southwest monsoon is expected to advance over Andaman and Nicobar islands within the next 48 hours as the conditions are favourable, K V Singh, director, meteorological department, Altinho said.

Similarly, the onset of monsoon over Kerala is also likely to happen on May 31 as scheduled. "The conditions seem conducive for the advance of southwest monsoon over the Kerala coast on time," Singh said.

The met department finds the cloud formation and change in wind conditions encouraging. "There is good development (in weather conditions) as the sky is overcast and wind direction is changing from north westerly to westerly direction, and it will then change to south westerly direction," Singh said.

After the onset of the monsoon over Kerala coast, it takes about a week for it to reach Goa. "It takes seven to eight days for onset of monsoon in Goa after Kerala, but there have been occasions when it has taken a single day and even 15 days," Singh said.

In 2005, Goa experienced heavy rainfall within 24 hours after the outbreak of monsoon over the southern coast, he pointed out.  The forecast for the next 24 hours is light rain or thunder showers in a few places.  The maximum temperature on Friday came down slightly to 34.2 degrees Celsius after 35.0 degrees on Thursday and the highest this year of 35.3 degrees was recorded on Wednesday.