The Hindu Business Line : Cool seawaters off Gujarat douse cyclone spin

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 9 Cooling of the coastal seawaters from a prolonged rain has prevented the monsoon ‘low’ over Kutch from spinning to cyclonic strength just yet.

But the system could rustle up some strength after it heads out into the open waters of north Arabian Sea and approaches Sindh in Pakistan, according to latest forecasts.

The Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Centre (FNMOC) of the US Navy kept the system (tagged 91A) under watch for signs of intensification. Located astride the Gulf of Kutch at 5 p.m. on Thursday, the system featured winds speeding to 15 knots (27 km/h).

As the ‘low’ heads west over into the northern Arabian Sea, the potential for it to become a tropical depression or even tropical cyclone cannot be altogether ruled out, says Mr Jim Andrews of AccuWeather.com.

SHIFT IN TROUGH

Meanwhile, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) update on Thursday said that available meteorological analysis suggested a northward shift of the western end of the monsoon trough from Friday onwards. This will happen in tandem with the weather-creating ‘low’ exiting the Gujarat coast.

The western end of the monsoon trough would, in this manner, move towards the western Himalayas taking the rain belt to the hilly regions and adjoining plains of northwest India. Rainfall would be subdued over central, interior peninsular and northeastern India over the next few days.

But the recess would not last long since the Bay of Bengal is expected to throw up the next low-pressure area as early as on Friday. This will occur as a migrant circulation from a tropical depression in the South China Sea sets up base to the contiguous water body to its west.

RENEWED RAIN SPELL

This fresh ‘low’ will once again send out waves of hammering rain over Orissa, Gangetic West Bengal and Jharkhand to begin with. International weather models speak about a trend for increased rains in the region late this week and early into the next.

Two prevailing storms in the South China Sea and west Pacific, named ‘Wutip’ and ‘Pabuk’, are priming for a landfall after moving in a west-northwest direction deemed friendly to Indian monsoon. They would help keep the buzz in the Bay of Bengal going at least until August 20 and thus set the stage for migrant ‘lows’ to settle.

Going forward, projections by the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) suggest that the week starting August 16 to 23 would see rains coming back to west-central India (Gujarat and northwest Maharashtra), parts of northwest India and east India.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) also tends to support this view. The west Pacific is seen as largely ‘behaving’ during this extended period, too, ensuring that no contra-indicating typhoon drags away the monsoon flows.

An IMD warning for the next 24 hours said on Thursday that scattered heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over Saurashtra and Kutch, and, in association with the brewing ‘low’ in the Bay, over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is also likely over coastal Orissa, coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep and north Konkan.

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