The Hindu Business Line : Hit-or-miss showers continue in TN, Kerala

Intermittent rainfall, at times heavy, is being reported from southern Tamil Nadu and adjoining Kerala as the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) played footsie with the larger equatorial zone to the immediate north.

Both Tamil Nadu and Kerala are within striking distance of the ITCZ, a global band of low-pressure and cloudiness, which is currently aligned along the Equator (0 deg Latitude) anomalously south to its known moorings during this time of the year.

LOCALISED RAIN

These localised rains are likely to continue till such time as the northeast features monsoon get fully established once again over the peninsula. In fact, the natural rhythm of the northeast monsoon has come to be affected in this manner, with the Bay of Bengal witnessing hardly any storm activity for quite sometime now.

Forecasters are looking to Tropical Storm Durian, a western Pacific storm, to close in and trigger some activity in the Bay waters. How Durian would play out is beyond the predictive capacity of most models since the storm is at least 7-10 days away from being of some consequence to India's territorial waters.

`WINDOW' FOR BAY

But Durian presents a "window of opportunity for the Bay to get its act together," said Dr Akhilesh Gupta of the Department of Science and Technology. All other conditions on ground and above are ideal for any incipient circulation to grow in the Bay.

Durian is forecast to pack some punch and send in a feed after making landfall over the Vietnamese coast on December 4/5 and weakening subsequently. According to Dr Gupta, models are of the consensus view that the Durian remnant would set up a feeble `low' over the Andaman Sea, the gateway to the larger Bay waters.

But the system will have to emerge into the adjoining southeast or south-central Bay if it has to grow and get the northeast monsoon going again. This would be a crucial phase, and would bear close monitoring. The `low' in the Andaman Sea is now thought to take shape around December 7.

RABI CLIMES

Temperatures prevailing from December 15 onwards will decide which way the Rabi crops are headed, Dr Gupta said in reply to a specific question. Currently, the sowing operations are on, which can cope with the mercury levels prevailing in the specific cropping areas, he added.

WINTER IN NORTH

Meanwhile, wintry conditions have set in the north with westerly/ northwesterly flows getting a leg-up in the region, Dr Gupta said.

Officially, winter is set to begin from January and run through February. But in practice, winter establishes itself in the north, northwest and central India from December onwards.

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