The Hindu Business Line : East India bracing for a wet spell

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan. 21 The stage is being set for a wet spell for east, North-East and east-central India, which is expected to set in over the next few days.

The hills and plains of the northwest are expected to first receive isolated rainfall as the causative fresh western disturbance impacts the western Himalayan region and the plains from Tuesday onwards.

TROUGH OF LOW

In the east, the trough of low pressure extending from Arunachal Pradesh to Assam and Meghalaya now runs from Arunachal Pradesh to North Bay of Bengal. Complimenting this on the west coast is a cyclonic circulation that lay over Madhya Maharashtra and neighbourhood on Monday.

This cyclonic circulation will be the gateway for moisture influx from the Arabian Sea, which is being transported to the east-central coast by the wide sweep of the westerly flows associated with the upper air trough over Pakistan-Afghanistan. In this manner, tropical warmth brought in by this moisture influx will toy with the extra-tropical (outside of the tropics) cold piloted by the western disturbance to cause unsettled weather and rains over east-central India and the north-east.

Isolated rain/snowfall has been forecast for Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand from Tuesday, which will intensify thereafter. Isolated rain or thundershowers are also likely over Punjab and Haryana.