The Hindu Business Line : Weakened `low' may still bring rain over South

Thiruvananthapuram April 10 The low-pressure area around Kanyakumari weakened into an upper air cyclonic circulation on Tuesday, but was still capable of influencing weather over extreme south peninsula for another day.

The "low" has already brought fairly widespread rainfall over south Tamil Nadu and Kerala during the past two days. Heavy rainfall measuring up to a maximum of 8 cm has been reported from various parts of the two states.

The National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) said in its update on Tuesday that the upper air cyclonic circulation was hovering over Sri Lanka.

Models predictions suggest a westward movement of the system, which has validated a continued outlook for showery weather over south Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Lakshadweep.

Mr Jim Andrews of AccuWeather.com put the scenario in perspective saying convective rains are obvious over southern India and Sri Lanka. The area of unsettled weather seems to be a weak cyclonic whirl.

It is this whirl that has been simulated for a number of days on numerical forecast models. Mr Andrews also cited other models suggesting that the swath of rainy weather would shift northeastwards over Sri Lanka and southern India and head into the open Bay of Bengal.

He did not see any reason to believe that a tropical cyclone is in the making.

Heat axis shift

What seems to be happening this week is that the heat axis is shifting northward thanks to the massive upper-atmospheric ridge (area of high pressure) forecast to buckle the sub-tropical jet stream (carrier of cool weather into North India) beyond the Hindukush/Himalaya mountain wall.

At the same time, weak low pressure is indicated over southern India suggesting strongly that there will be at least a few daily random thunderstorms right through the week.

They could line up presumably along the channel of `wind discontinuity' (what could progressively become a trough of low pressure) extending north into Central India. Pakistan, northern India and lowland Nepal will grow increasingly hot over the coming days, Mr Andrews said.

During the past 24 hours, moderate to rather heavy rain/thundershowers have occurred at many places over the northeastern states as well.

Model predictions suggest that the ongoing rainfall activity over the region is likely to continue during the next two days.

Both the day and night temperatures are likely to rise gradually over the next five days in the region.

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