The Hindu Business Line : Weekend rains likely over peninsula

Thiruvananthapuram, July 23 Shifting weather two days from now is forecast to set off ‘breakthrough’ rains along the peninsular coasts and the arid interior in advance of a ‘low’ forecast to spin up over the Bay of Bengal.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) on Wednesday cited numerical weather prediction models to suggest a southward shift of the land-based monsoon trough and its dip into the Bay to scoop up the ‘low’ by Sunday.

The system is likely to materialise over northwest and adjoining west-central Bay off the Orissa coast, and international models see at least one round of intensification before it makes a landfall by July 29.

Under this scenario, there is ‘good possibility’ of fairly widespread rainfall activity over parts of central India and adjoining Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat from Friday, the IMD said.

Rains are expected to spread over the peninsula, including the drought-prone or moisture-stressed Telengana, Vidarbha, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada, north and south interior Karnataka and Kerala, apart from Tamil Nadu.

EAST TO DRY UP

The ongoing rainfall along the west coast is also likely to increase gradually during the next five days, with the possibility of heavy to very heavy falls. This would be matched by a corresponding reduction in rainfall over east India in line with the southward movement of the monsoon trough.

The Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) of the US National Weather Services has come out with a comparable outlook in its benefits and hazards assessment for the global tropics.

It said that there are increased chances for above average rainfall for southern India and the Bay of Bengal until August 4. On a scale of 1 to 3 (high, moderate and low), the CPC rated its level of confidence in the eventuality as ‘moderate.’

The enhanced convective phase of a passing Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave of anomalous precipitation and its shift to the northeast will be instrumental in bringing about wet conditions across the region during this period, it explained.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) saw the ‘low’ triggering an active monsoon phase over the peninsula. One significant difference was a related forecast of a counterpart ‘low’ spinning up almost on cue in the north-east Arabian Sea.

ROGUE ‘LOW’

But, unlike on previous occasions, monsoon flows would be strong enough to hold on their own over the peninsula and not swayed by the ‘rogue’ system popping up southwest off south Gujarat and to the south of Sindh, Pakistan.

Forecasts indicate that the Arabian Sea system would get insignificant as it charts a move to the west towards Oman.

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