May brings record rain, climate alert for Goa
Panaji:
The month of May this year gave Goans a volatile mix of blistering heatwave-like conditions and torrential rain — both in the pre-monsoon and early monsoon phases.
The early arrival of the southwest monsoon, which made landfall in Goa on May 26 — 12 days ahead of schedule — marked a rare meteorological event for the coastal state.
Prior to the monsoon's onset, Goa was hit by a surge in the pre-monsoon showers, with a total of 462.3mm recorded till May 25. A single-day downpour on May 21 brought 139.5mm, 'pushing the pre-monsoon rainfall figure to nearly 900% above normal,' said meteorologist and retired National Institute of Oceanography chief scientist, Ramesh Kumar.
'Two weather systems played a critical role in this precipitation surge.
On May 24 and 25, a depression in the Arabian Sea near the Goa coast acted as a catalyst for early monsoon currents,' he said. 'A deep depression over the Bay of Bengal on May 29 and 30 brought further monsoonal intensification.'
As of May 30, the official monsoon rainfall total for Goa stands at 208mm, just four days into the season. The most intense single-day rainfall so far was recorded in Sanquelim on May 28, with 178mm in 24 hours.
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That same day, Panaji received 138mm, Canacona 117.2mm, and Margao 104.2mm.
May did not start wet — quite the opposite. The first half of the month was dominated by widespread discomfort and heat stress. Then, almost overnight, the heavens opened.
'This dramatic transition from intense heat to extreme rainfall fits precisely into climate change projections,' associate professor at BITS Pilani's Goa campus Rajiv Chaturvedi said.
'The extremes are becoming the new normal. We are, without a doubt, in the middle of climate change.'
The report of the State Plan for Action on Climate Change, 2023, warned that Goa could experience maximum temperatures crossing 40°C and minimum temperatures rising at an even higher rate over the next decade.
'Such an increase will make nights extremely uncomfortable and amplify the risk of heat-related illnesses,' Chaturvedi said.
More alarmingly, he noted that while daily rainfall events exceeding 150mm used to be rare in Goa, they are now becoming more frequent — a trend expected to continue as global temperatures rise.
'There is an urgent need to climate-proof our state,' he said. 'From heat action plans to flood management strategies and disaster preparedness, we must build climate resilience now. The evidence is not just in climate models anymore — it's in our daily weather.'
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