Strong winds have delayed the monsoon from reaching Bengaluru by two days. Though it seemed like it would rain in the city on Wednesday, the Indian Meteorological Department said the monsoon is yet to hit Bengaluru. On Tuesday, the monsoon broke over coastal Kerala and Karnataka, but did not advance towards the interior and southern parts of the state. But now conditions are favourable for the onset of the monsoon over Bengaluru and remaining parts of Karnataka.
“About eight districts in Karnataka are receiving moderate to heavy rainfall in the last two days. When 75% of the rain recording centres in a particular climatological zone receive rains over a certain time then the conditions can be termed as monsoon. But as far as Bengaluru is concerned, there have been no signs of monsoon except for change in wind direction (south west side) and increase in the wind speed,” said B. Puttanna, director, IMD Bengaluru. Strong winds on Wednesday (44 kmph at 2 pm was the highest recorded wind speed) deterred precipitation.
“We are expecting heavy rainfall over isolated places in most parts of the state and Bengaluru in the coming days,” said Mr Puttanna. On Wednesday some parts of the city reported light drizzles and the temperature remained at around 30 degrees Celsius. This will continue for the next few days due to thick cloud cover. The trend of the last few years is that Bengaluru receives rains towards the latter part of the monsoon season, experts say.