October turned out to be a bountiful month for Kerala, with the State receiving around half of the northeast monsoon season rainfall in just two weeks. Although the back-to-back weather systems formed over the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea, including the ‘Montha’ cyclone, powered the rainfall after a deficient first half of October, the prospects for normal precipitation remain bleak in the first week of November, as the Bay remains calm after the cyclone.
However, weather activity, especially the reestablishment of easterly wind over the southern peninsula including over Kerala, is likely to be active by the end of the first week as a fresh system is likely to take shape over the Bay of Bengal by November 5-7, albeit the intensity of the system will be weak. Kerala has received a total of 276 mm of rainfall as of October 31 against the average of 306.4 during the month of October, and the bulk of the rain occurred during the last two weeks of the month.
The typical thundershowers were absent this time during the first leg of the northeast monsoon with strong westerly winds prevailing over the State fuelled by the weather systems in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, which disrupted the anti-cyclonic flow. Similarly, the State had been witnessing rain powered by the stratus-type clouds, a speciality of the southwest monsoon season. “We hope the typical thundershowers will be back by the end of the first week of November with the re-establishment of easterlies,” said Neetha K Gopal, India Meteorological Department (IMD) director, Thiruvananthapuram.
In addition, the latest monthly forecast issued by the IMD also warns of above normal rainfall in Kerala during November, and the Bay of Bengal is expected to be active after an initial slump in November. Meanwhile, the depression that persists over the Arabian Sea is likely to be the second longest-lived weather system in the recorded history of the IMD. The longest ever recorded tropical cyclone with life period about 13.5 days was recorded in October 1924 with the system originated in the South China Sea moving westwards across Vietnam, Bay of Bengal, South India, the Arabian Sea and finally to Oman.
The present system in the Arabian Sea that took the shape of a depression on October 22 is still moving near the Gujarat coast. However, the intensity of the system is likely to decrease significantly in the coming days as it moves closer to the coast of Gujarat, where relatively cooler water persists compared to the sea surface temperatures of the other regions in the Arabian Sea. The interaction with the coast will also weaken the system further. The system played a major role in enhancing the rainfall activity along the west coast including in Kerala in October.
Published – October 31, 2025 08:00 pm IST
