Monsoon advances further

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The southwest monsoon is virtually at Keralas doorstep, with the development of a convective system over the southeast Arabian Sea and nearby Comorin area on Friday.

The India Meteorology Department (IMD), in its bulletin for the day, announced the further advancement of the monsoon from the southern tip of Sri Lanka to the Comorin area. The northern limit of the monsoon, arcing from southwest to northeast below the peninsula, was on Friday lying about 500 km to the south of Thiruvananthapuram.

The State continued to receive good rainfall on Friday under the distant spell of the cyclonic storm �Laila over the Bay of Bengal flank of the subcontinent. This system has weakened by degrees from the status of a �severe cyclonic storm to a �cyclone and then to a �deep depression and to �depression over the 24-hour period from Thursday noon. The depression lay centred at a point some 100 km inside the Andhra Pradesh coastline around noon on Friday.