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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram June 10 The southwest monsoon continues to be active along the west coast and in the northeast of the country but what sets the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal arms apart is the relative lateral movement achieved.

The Bay arm is now busy making up for the lost time in covering more and more areas in the northeast and the east. The Arabian Sea arm too is active, but its progress to the north is still held up for the time being due to lack of `steering' systems (monsoon `low'/depression).

WAIT FOR MUMBAI

This could lead to a deferment of the time for onset in Mumbai, according to Dr K.J. Ramesh of the Department of Science and Technology.

Seasonal rains were expected to reach the country's financial capital around Sunday (June 10), but Dr Ramesh said he would not be surprised to hear about a delay of two to three days. In the meantime, the strong flows will ensure that torrential downpour buffet large parts of the west coast all along.

What could now prove crucial is the possibility of a `low' throwing itself up close to land over the southeast coast, which the European Centre for Medium-term Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) has been indicating over the past few days. This could bring about dramatic changes in the way monsoon is driven up to the north along the west coast and in how speedily the rain belt extends footprint over the rest of the peninsula.

SEVERE HEAT WAVE

Meanwhile, severe heat wave conditions are continuing in the north and northwest with mercury crossing the 45 deg C-mark at many places. The heat wave will persist, aggravating in some pockets, given the fact that no soothing intervention by cool western disturbances are expected any time soon. Neither has the east-to-west seasonal trough, which helps bring cool easterlies from the Bay, settled into place.

The anticipated `low' is now shown to be popping over the Head Bay and would undergo at least one round of intensification over land before starting to move to the northwest. This will bring the belt of heavy rain rushing into Orissa as well as further west into central India.

This low is seen interacting with the monsoon flows from the west coast by June 15 to scale up the rainfall in the region over the next two three days. Another `low' is set to form over the southern tip of the peninsula around this time, which will roll up in a north-northeast direction over land.

SYSTEME MAY MERGE

The two `low's are shown to merge, extending the wet session for `quite sometime' over north and central peninsula. The interiors of peninsular India will thus get a productive round of wet spell, ensuring equitable distribution of rainfall. This is a possibility that had been forecast much earlier by the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society at Columbia University.

An Ohio State University weather update said on Sunday that the monsoon has advanced into some more parts of the Northwest Bay, entire sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim and some parts of Bihar. The northern limit of monsoon passed through Karwar, Chitradurga, Salem, Nagapattinam, Malda and Purnea.

MONSOON TO ADVANCE

Conditions are favourable for further advance into some more parts of Bihar and some parts of Gangetic West Bengal and Jharkhand during the next 48 hours, the update said.

An India Meteorological Department forecast on Sunday said that the offshore trough extending from the Karnataka coast to Kerala coast would bring fairly widespread rainfall activity is likely over Kerala, coastal Karnataka and Lakshadweep during the next three days.

Enhanced rainfall activity with heavy to very heavy fall is likely to continue over the Northeastern States.

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