Even though May has been unusually cool across large parts of India, the signals for the arrival of the southwest monsoon are turning increasingly strong and optimistic.
Thunderstorms are already crackling across Tamil Nadu and Kerala, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, historically the monsoon’s first landfall point in India, are now barely a fortnight away from the expected onset.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast rainfall activity over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and Mahe over the next seven days, with pre-monsoon thunderstorms expected to intensify through May, a key seasonal sign that the monsoon is progressing on schedule.
Across north-west and eastern India, the weather is swinging between sharp heat and sudden bursts of thunderstorms, lightning, and hailstorms, the same conditions associated with a season in transition.
In other words, the monsoon is on track and shaping up for a timely arrival over the Kerala coast around June 1, right on schedule.
What confirms the changing weather conditions is a continent away, in Australia.
Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology recently declared the 2025–26 northern Australian wet season officially over.
To most people, that is another country’s weather bulletin with no obvious connection to Indian agriculture or rainfall. But meteorologists tracking the Asian monsoon watch this declaration closely, and there’s a reason.
The retreat of monsoonal activity from Australia removes one of the last obstacles in the way of the monsoon’s punctual arrival over South Asia, clearing the way for the rainy conditions to move northward towards India.
HOW IS AUSTRALIA LINKED TO INDIA’S MONSOON
To understand why Australia matters for India’s monsoon, you need to imagine a giant invisible belt of clouds and rain that circles the entire planet near the equator.
Every year, without fail, this belt drifts northward as summer approaches the Northern Hemisphere, and southward as it approaches the Southern Hemisphere. It follows the Sun, and wherever it goes, it carries rain.
This belt is what ultimately delivers the monsoon to India.
When Australia’s wet season ends, the southern half of this belt loses its pull, due to which the belt is freed to shift northward more decisively. As it shifts, it drags moisture-laden winds from the ocean up toward South Asia.
Right now, that shift is already visible.
The belt has crossed the equator and is edging past the Maldives, toward Sri Lanka and India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the traditional first stop on the monsoon’s journey before it reaches the Kerala coast.
From here, the pattern is well-worn and reliable to deliver showers across the nation.
Every year from May through September, as Australia stays dry, India gets its rain.
By late September, the roles reverse as the belt drifts back south, Australia’s wet season begins, and India’s monsoon withdraws. It is the same seasonal swap, repeating year after year, hemisphere to hemisphere, as naturally as the Sun rises every day.
For now, the signals are aligned, the belt is moving in the right direction, and India’s monsoon, awaited by over a billion people, is on its way.
– Ends