Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], May 25 : As the southwest monsoon makes an early arrival in India, parts of Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris district have been witnessing incessant rain, accompanied by strong winds and thunderstorms.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Sunday predicted "light to moderate rain at a few places with thunderstorm & lightning with gusty winds speed reaching 40-50 kilometres per hour (kmph) at one or two places over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Karaikal area."
Furthermore, a 15-year-old boy from Kerala lost his life on Sunday after a tree fell on him amid the adverse weather conditions in the 8th Mile area near Ooty.
The incident occurred while the boy was on a sightseeing trip with his family. As weather conditions worsened across the district, a sudden gust of wind uprooted a tree, which fell on the child.
The family members rushed the injured boy to the Ooty Government Medical College Hospital with serious bleeding wounds. However, doctors at the hospital examined him and declared him dead.
The Pykara police also launched an initial investigation into the incident.
Meanwhile, the weather department forecast "isolated heavy to very heavy rain with extremely heavy rain" at one or two places over Nilgiris and Ghat areas of Coimbatore districts on May 25 and 26.
Heavy to very heavy rain is likely to occur at isolated places over the Theni, Tenkasi, and Ghat areas of Tirunelveli districts, IMD predicted for today.
Heavy rain is likely to occur at isolated places over Tiruppur, Dindigul and Kanyakumari districts.
On May 27, the weather department said that the Nilgiris and Ghat areas of Coimbatore districts are likely to witness heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places.
As monsoons arrived early in India, the Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) of Tamil Nadu on Saturday said that this onset of southwest monsoon is much earlier than the normal onset.
When asked about the northeast monsoons, B Amudha, the head of the Regional Meteorological Centre stated that the performance of northeast monsoon cannot be forecasted on the basis of performance of southwest monsoon.
"The normal date of onset of the southwest monsoon is June 1. This year Southwest monsoon set in on 24th May. This is much earlier than the normal onset. If you look at the data from the past 16 years, in 2009, the monsoon set in on 23rd May. This year, it is 8 days earlier... At present, we cannot say anything about the performance of the northeast monsoon on the basis of the southwest monsoon. Let us monitor the progress, and then we will issue the long-range forecast," B Amudha said.
Meanwhile, a 30-member team of National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) arrived in Tamil Nadu's Ooty as a red alert for the rain has been issued for the Nilgiris district.