The Hindu Business Line : Drenchers return to pound Gujarat-Mumbai belt

Thiruvananthapuram, Sept. 19 Peak-monsoon circulatory patterns are combining to drench the Gujarat-Mumbai-Konkan belt, their favourite playground, with torrents for one last time.

The proceedings have already been set in motion, with Mumbai and immediate neighbourhood being targeted overnight on Wednesday. But more is to come, what with an upper air cyclonic circulation popping up in the east-central Arabian Sea already.

RAINS FOR NORTHWEST

There is also growing consensus on scattered to widespread rains returning to the parched north and northwest India.

The resident anti-cyclone (clear skies with dry weather) risks the danger of being blown off its moorings at least temporarily.

Monday’s ‘low’ underwent one round of intensification to become well-marked, and has since strolled the west-central Bay of Bengal and adjoining coastal Andhra Pradesh.

It will cause fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over coastal Andhra Pradesh and south Orissa.

BAY WARMING AGAIN

Model predictions continue to suggest the possibility of another cyclonic circulation taking shape over northwest Bay, off the Andhra coast by this weekend.

This would unleash repeat bands of heavy rains over coastal Andhra Pradesh and adjoining Orissa until Monday.

Model predictions also suggest that a westerly trough would move across the hilly regions of northwest India during the same time.

The dipping trough is seen as interacting with the rejuvenated monsoon easterlies from the Bay to cause scattered to fairly widespread showers over Jammu and Kashmir, the critically rain-deficient Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the adjoining plains.

An array of cyclonic circulations hovered above Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana and neighbourhood central Pakistan and adjoining Punjab. All these are bracing to move to east-northeast and would, while passing, induce a calming influence over weather in the region.

On the west coast, the off-shore trough extended from the Maharashtra coast to Kerala.

EASTERLIES RETURN

According to Mr Jim Andrews of AccuWeather.com, upper-level easterlies have returned to northwest India as have winds of the southwest monsoon. A big bout of unsettled, rainy weather lies in store for the subcontinent as a whole.

The slow evolution and growth of the weak monsoon system is shown to culminate in an important monsoon ‘low’ off the west coast before the end of this week.

And another western disturbance may dip southward and actually bolster, rather than hinder, rains over northwest India at the weekend and early next. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), rainfall activity over south peninsula will scale down from early next week.