The Hindu Business Line : Rains splatter around despite weak monsoon

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 26 The monsoon trough as a whole may be shifting to the Himalayan foothills to signal weak/break monsoon conditions, but disparate atmospheric features are spearheading non-contiguous spells of moderate to heavy falls over much of the landscape.

While the north and east are being taken care of by the retreating trough, the animated state of the Bay of Bengal is driving rainfall in the southeast and peninsular interior. On the other hand, an offshore trough has cast a wet cover over the west coast.

During active monsoon conditions, rains progress more or less as part of an organised band of convection and there are no spatially separated episodes of wet sessions as in these conditions. A weak monsoon, though, is known to unleash rains along the southeast coast (parts of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu) as in the northeast.

MAY SUSTAIN

The pattern is seen sustaining through the month-end as well as going into the next (September), the last month of the season. The Bay will continue to remain in an `excited’ state through this period, even throwing up the odd upper air cyclonic circulation by the end of this week, which would be kept under watch for signs of descending to lower levels to set up a possible low-pressure area.

Even if this conversion fails to happen, the circulation would have set off rains along the southeast coast thanks given its origin in the west-central Bay. The rains could then progress a west-northwest track, as seems to be happening currently under the influence of a prevailing upper air cyclonic circulation that drifted in from the Bay.

WET SESSION

In the instant case, the circulation had taken shape last Saturday and had crossed in into the peninsular interior over the past two days where it has been presiding over a wet session. On Sunday, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the system had got embedded into a localised north-south trough.

Located over south madhya Maharashtra and neighbourhood, the system was expected to cause scattered to fairly widespread rainfall over madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh during the next two days. .

The current meteorological analysis suggested that fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very falls is likely over the north eastern States, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar and east Uttar Pradesh during next four days.

OFFSHORE TROUGH

The offshore trough will trigger fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall over the west coast during the next four days. In the northwest, a passing western disturbance is shown to interact with the monsoon easterlies to scale up the rainfall in the region over the next three days.

According to the IMD, rain/thundershowers are likely at a few places over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Uttar Pradesh during the next two days. Going forward, the rains will intensify. A same forecast has been held out for Punjab, Haryana and Delhi. Some of these areas find themselves featured in the updated `deficit rain’ list of August 22.

Similarly, rain/thundershowers have been predicted for many places in coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Konkan, Goa, madhya Maharashtra, Gujarat and Saurashtra.

The IMD has warned of isolated heavy to very rainfall over the north eastern States, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, east Uttar Pradesh and the west coast for the next two days.

Outlook for the subsequent two days spoke about the possibility of scattered to fairly widespread rainfall over northwest India. Fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very fall is likely over the north eastern states, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and Bihar.

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