India - weather in May

May is the last month of spring in the Northern Hemisphere. In India, a large country crossed by the Tropic of Cancer in the center-north, it is generally a very hot month, dry in the north-west and the center, rainy in the south-west and the north-east.
We are in the hottest period of the year, before the summer monsoon, which will arrives during the month of June. Actually, May is on average the hottest month of the year in India, although in the north, in the Indo-Gangetic plain, the hottest month is June, while in some areas of the far south it is April.

The temperature is high almost everywhere, especially in inland and low-altitude areas, where there can be heat waves, during which extremely high values can be reached, even 47/78 °C (117/118 °F) in the center-north.

As regards to the the rains, as mentioned, they are rare in the north-west and the center, while in the extreme north-east, at the foot of the mountains (see North Lakhimpur, Gangtok), they are decidedly abundant, and the temperatures are not as high as on the Indian continent. Even in the south-east, on the Nicobar and Andaman islands (see Port Blair), the rains are already frequent and abundant.
In the far south, the rains increase significantly, at least on the south-western coast (see Mangalore, Kochi, Trivandrum) and on the Laccadive islands (see Minicoy), where the monsoon arrives in the second half of the month.

In May, tropical cyclones can occur. Normally, in this month the south is spared, and cyclones hit the coast of the Arabian Sea in the west (in the states of Maharastra and Gujarat), and the coast of the Bay of Bengal in the east (north of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal), sometimes affecting the interior, albeit with less intensity.
However, every now and then the far south can be indirectly affected, in fact, a cyclone can form off the south-west coast, over the Laccadives, which can bring heavy rain to Kerala before moving north, and the same thing can happen on the south-eastern coast, off the coast of Tamil Nadu.

The sea is warm enough to swim in everywhere.




See also: India, the weather in April - June
The climate of India