The Hindu Business Line : Fresh low-pressure area over Bay likely

THE National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) has predicted the possibility of a fresh low-pressure area developing over the northwest Bay of Bengal as early as Saturday (July 23) but is apprehensive it may not automatically revive the monsoon system.

Speaking to Business Line, Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Director, NCMRWF, said the dominant westerlies would not allow the western end of the monsoon trough to settle into its decidedly southerly slot in time to receive the incoming low/depression setting off the revival. But helpful easterlies have already become discernible over the northeast.

The westerlies are now seen holding strong at least until Monday (July 25), only after which will the low-pressure area be able to evolve and traverse a west-northwesterly track considered the most ideal. In fact, Dr Gupta said it was the wrong positioning and onward course of the two earlier systems that left dry patches in the north peninsular India. Western parts of Vidarbha and eastern parts of Marathwada are still in huge rainfall arrears (of the order of up to - 88 per cent).

The ideal track for a Bay system to follow is Orissa and northwest to Chhattisgarh, western Madhya Pradesh and onwards into Rajasthan. But the orientation went awry on the earlier two occasions when the systems left Orissa to roll over north into Jharkhand, north Uttar Pradesh and south Uttar Pradesh.

A silver lining associated with the fresh system over the northwest Bay was that it is brewing at a position comparatively southward to where the earlier systems had taken shape. This should prove beneficial to the rain-scarce areas in the northern peninsula.

Importantly, farmers in these areas have been postponing cut-off dates for sowing one after the other in the hopes that the rains would arrive.

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