The Hindu Business Line : Welcome rains for Central India, west coast

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 19 Flooding rains have returned to West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand as Saturday’s well-marked ‘low’ over North Bay of Bengal, adjoining West Bengal and Bangladesh crossed over into land and lay over Gangetic West Bengal and neighbourhood on Sunday.

Fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with scattered heavy to very heavy fall and isolated extremely heavy fall is likely over the coastal areas of these States for the next two days, a forecast by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Sunday.

This is expected to bring to an end a brief lull in rain activity brought about as much by the retreat of the western end of the monsoon trough to the foothills of the western Himalayas as by prevailing Super Typhoon Sepat in the eastern Philippine Sea.

TROUGH MAY SHIFT

While the typhoon has weakened subsequent to landfall over Taiwan, an approaching western disturbance is expected to interact with the monsoon easterlies closer home and help realign the monsoon trough somewhat to the south, but not quite to its normal position to represent active monsoon conditions.

In this manner, parts of northwest India as well as the Gangetic plains stand to get some rain in tandem with the shifting trough. On Sunday, the axis of the monsoon trough passed through Ferozepur, Karnal, Mainpuri, Pratapgarh, Dhanbad, centre of well marked low-pressure area and thence to east-central Bay of Bengal.

The well-marked ‘low’ is seen driving rain into Gangetic West Bengal and south Chhattisgarh during the next two days. Subsequently, the rain belt is likely to shift to Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, north madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada, Gujarat and east Rajasthan.

OFFSHORE TROUGH

The west coast also is predicted to receive some rainfall during this week as the offshore trough gets extended more to the south. The trough is currently active from Gujarat to the south Maharashtra coast.

International weather models suggest that another spell of rainfall may return to east India early next week and propagate later to most parts of central India, probably under the influence of an easterly wave. But, going by projections, it may not get mirrored along the west coast this time round.

The IMD cited numerical weather prediction model predictions to suggest that fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls are likely over Konkan, Goa and coastal Karnataka during the next four days.

RAINS IN TN

Elsewhere in the south, the rains over Tamil Nadu may get less marked as the well-marked ‘low’ takes centre stage over the monsoon landscape. The wet session in the State over the past few days had coincided with the weak phase of the monsoon, when the rains get confined to the Himalayan foothills and along the southeastern coast of the country.

Scattered rain or thundershowers are likely over Gujarat and East Rajasthan during next two days and scale up thereafter under the influence of the approaching monsoon `low’ from the Bay. The same trend is indicated for east Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha and west Madhya Pradesh.