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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug. 19 The eastern end of the monsoon trough is still scouring the waters of the north-east Bay of Bengal for signs of a possible cyclonic circulation or ‘low’ even as the western end continued to run close to the foothills of the Himalayas.

The western end too was likely to shift South from Wednesday, according to an update by India Meteorological Department, which had earlier notified the likely formation of a bay system in the next two days.

The shift of the western end to the South provides an ‘enabling environment’ for the formation, though. On Tuesday, the eastern end passed through Gorakhpur, Patna, Asansol, Kolkata and then south-eastwards into the north-east Bay. This end was ‘dry-docked’ the past few days and lay over land indicating weak monsoon conditions.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting maintained its watch for a system in the North Bay and its movement along the south-east coast. It is shown as toying with the coast all along, without penetrating the hinterland.

The current lull in activity in southern and western parts of the country is in sharp contrast with, and to some extent the result of, building activity in the South China Sea and the north-west/West Pacific. With the ‘storm season’ on, these water bodies to the Bay’s east will see keen activity during the next two weeks.

According to forecasts by the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services, a raging Category-2 Typhoon Nuri will impact the waters near the North Philippines and later Taiwan with heavy rains, damaging winds and high seas.

The London-based Tropical Storm Risk Group said that Nuri will storm into the Philippines during the next 24 hours. The decidedly West/north-west track will take Nuri progressively to Taiwan and East China Sea where it is shown to spin up as destructive Cateogry 4 typhoon. It will erupt in a landfall over the south-east China coast later.

The west-northwest track bristles with the possibility of a ‘pulse’ from the system travelling the distance to be snapped up by the Bay of Bengal, where it could reincarnate further as a ‘low’. In fact, a pulse from predecessor storm, Kammuri, is what meteorologists believe is engaging the Bay currently.

West-northwest-tracking storms from the South China Sea/Northwest Pacific are monitored for their capacity to remotely set the Bay up for a weather system, though with a lag effect of seven to 10 days.

The US forecaster also warned of two weeks of possible heightened cyclogenesis (birth of storms) for much of the tropical Atlantic, just to the East of the Gulf of Mexico with an array of oil rigs and platforms. The tracks of the storms will be monitored for implications for strategic oil and gas installations in the Gulf.

Continued robust easterly waves from the African continent in combination with a generally favourable large-scale environment and above-average sea-surface temperatures support an increasing threat of development of storms in these seas. Major US oil companies had collectively heaved a sigh of relief as Tropical Storm Fay veered off course on Monday to spare the oil and gas assets.

Back home, an upper air cyclonic circulation over East Uttar Pradesh persisted on Tuesday. Current meteorological analysis suggests its strengthening and movement to the north-west forced by southeasterlies from the Bay.

This movement is expected to result in scattered to fairly widespread rainfall activity over central and adjoining plains of north-west India for at least three days from Thursday.

Forecasts also indicated fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over the north-east, West Bengal, Sikkim, Orissa, East Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during the next two days. Isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over the north-east, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, East Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Climate & Weather

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