The Hindu Business Line : Rain surplus swells as Bay throws up new ‘low’

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 10 A fresh low-pressure area formed over the northwest Bay of Bengal off the Orissa-West Bengal coast on Friday even as the rainfall surplus for the season reversed trend and began building once again.

Statistics till August 8 showed a seven per cent surplus, with 32 out of the 36 Met sub-divisions recording excess or normal rainfall, leaving only four in the deficient list.

Himachal Pradesh (-36 per cent); West Uttar Pradesh (-21 per cent); East Madhya Pradesh (-31 per cent); and Marathwada (-23 per cent) continued to be the in the red.

RAINS EXPECTED

But these areas could look forward to some rainfall from a shift in the alignment of the monsoon trough in the northwest and the likely direction of movement of the new ‘low’.

On Friday, the axis of monsoon trough passed through Jaisalmer, Sikar, Aligarh, Gorakhpur, Bhagalpur, Asansol, the centre of the low pressure area, and then southeastwards into east-central Bay of Bengal.

The northwest end of the trough is expected to move to the western Himalayan foothills subsequent to Thursday’s ‘low’ exiting the Gujarat region and drifting away to the open waters of Arabian Sea.

The ongoing enhanced rainfall activity over Gujarat, central and peninsular interior India is likely to decrease considerably, while the hilly regions and plains of the northwest will benefit from a new spell.

TO MOVE NORTHWEST

Preliminary assessment suggests that the Bay ‘low’ would take a northwest (instead of west-northwest) direction, bringing widespread rainfall with isolated very heavy falls to Orissa, Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar over the next three days.

The active off-shore trough will continue to bring fairly widespread rainfall activity with isolated heavy to very heavy falls likely along the west coast. Kerala, Lakshadweep, coastal Karnataka, Konkan and Goa.

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