The Hindu Business Line : East under wet cover as next ‘low’ beckons

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug. 14 The well-marked ‘low’ over Gangetic West Bengal and neighbourhood has become less marked into a ‘low’, but is still spraying rain over many parts of east India.

Widespread rainfall with scattered heavy to very heavy falls and isolated extremely heavy falls is likely over Orissa and Jharkhand during the next 24 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in its forecast on Tuesday.

Fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls is also likely over West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, East Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh until Thursday.

The heavy rain belt would later propagate to east Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with scattered heavy to very heavy falls and isolated extremely heavy falls. Parts of east-central India, especially north Chhattisgarh and east Madhya Pradesh, will also get heavy to very heavy rainfall during this period.

MORE TO FOLLOW

The ‘animated’ state of the Bay of Bengal would lead to creation of more weather-creating systems in the basin. The IMD has already notified the next ‘low’ by Saturday.

International weather models predict a west-northwesterly movement of this system over land, which should bring the rains back to central, north peninsular and west-central India.

The US National Centre for Environmental Prediction forecasts depict the system, and probably a successor, moving west-northwest and fading into the Konkan and south Gujarat region by August 27.

Activity on the west coast would be subdued for almost the whole of the month, since most of available flows over the Arabian Sea are heading straight into the South China Sea/west Pacific, feeding a relentless progression of tropical storms/typhoons. This in turn sends ripples into the neighbouring Bay of Bengal to the west, keeping it an active state.

RAINS IN NORTHWEST

On Tuesday, the axis of the monsoon trough passed through Amritsar, Karnal, Pantnagar, Gorakhpur, Bhagalpur, centre of the ‘low’ and southeastwards into east-central Bay of Bengal.

The western end of the monsoon trough is lying close to the foothills of the western Himalayas, bringing heavy rains to the hilly region and also over adjoining plains of northwest India. Rain/thundershowers are likely at most places over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and west Uttar Pradesh.

But a secondary trough is seen extending from the centre of the ‘low’ north-northeast into Assam, which would help drive rain into many parts of northeast India over the next four days. Alongside, sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim will also be brought under rain cover.

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