• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 31 Heavy to very heavy rains have erupted over extreme south peninsula, and perhaps for the first time over Kerala after the season set in three months ago, as an ongoing spell pounded its way ahead.

This is expected to later spark intense activity to the north along the west coast as the heavy rain belt gets yanked away from interior Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

The west coast rains are predicted to wallop the adjoining interior as they push in a north-northeast direction. The outlook for more rains for north interior Karnataka, madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada, Vidarbha and Telengana still holds good.

These rains are being attributed to weather anomalies associated with the periodical Madden-Julian Oscillation wave that travels west to east across the Indian Ocean.

Elevated sea surface temperatures bequeathed by the Indian Ocean Dipole too have helped provide the needed platform.

The Met Centre, Chennai, said that 24 hours ending Sunday morning saw vigorous monsoon conditions over Kerala and active over interior Karnataka.

Rainfall occurred at most places over north interior Karnataka and Lakshadweep, at many places over Kerala and south interior Karnataka and at a few places over Telangana and Tamil Nadu.

Isolated rainfall occurred over coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema and coastal Karnataka. Stations recording very heavy to heavy rainfall (in cm) are: Thiruvananthapuram Airport-13; Thiruvananthapuram-12; Kollam-11; Thodupuzha and Agathi Airport-10 each; Gulbarga, Lingasugur and Avinashi- 8 each and Aminidivi and Sindhanur-7 each.

In west and west-central India, the monsoon was subdued over Konkan-Goa and Saurashtra-Kutch. Rainfall occurred at many places over Marathawada, at a few places over madhya Maharashtra, Konkan-Goa and at isolated places over Gujarat region.

According to an assessment by the US-based Centre for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies, the rains could well last until mid-September, though slightly weakened. Another model added five more days to this, in extended coverage. The Outgoing Long-wave Radiation (OLR, radiation escaping the terrestrial surface and in some ways an indicator of cloud cover) was assessed by another model as staying negative until October. Positive values indicate clear skies.

In the East, the monsoon trough continued to run close to the foothills of the Himalayas, offering no respite from the flooding rains. The trough will stay as such for another three days, according to an India Meteorological Department (IMD) update on Sunday.

On Sunday, another meteorological feature was traced to the region promising more rains along the southeast coast - a north-south trough from Bihar to Tamil Nadu through Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh with embedded cyclonic circulations over Bihar and Tamil Nadu. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting had last week predicted some ‘buzz’ in the region, top-ended by a cyclonic whirl on or just off the coast.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Climate & Weather

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line