The Hindu Business Line : Super typhoon Jangmi drains out moisture

Thiruvananthapuram, Sept 28 Super typhoon Jangmi, a massive storm in the Northwest Pacific, has spirited away available moisture over the southwest and adjoining equatorial Indian Ocean even as it bore down heavily on Taiwan.

The Category-4 monster packed winds reaching in excess of 220 km/hr but had clearly slowed down as it approached for a landfall, according to weather models tracking the event.

Satellite pictures showed a huge trail of moisture being swept into the storm centre across the equatorial Indian Ocean. This may have helped keep most of the Indian landmass, except the east and northeast, dry over the last two days.

SPORADIC SHOWERS

According to the US-based Centre for Ocean-Land-Atmospheric Studies, sporadic showers may break out over the peninsula southwest-ward from East India into central peninsula and the west coast during the week ending October 5 to balk at the withdrawing monsoon.

And the week that follows (October 6-14) would see these rains scaling up further to extend into central India. The withdrawing monsoon would be able to do no more than drive a wedge from extreme northwest India tapering into the east (around Chhattisgarh).

Stray showers would keep regions to the north of this wedge-line (the Punjab-Haryana-Delhi-Uttar Pradesh belt) and the south (central India and the rest of the peninsula) somewhat wet.

As if on cue, Sunday’s feeble ‘low’ over Bangladesh and adjoining Gangetic West Bengal (thought to be remnant of Hagupit, Jangmi’s predecessor) is forecast to be pushed north-northwest along the Himalayan foothills.

TROPICAL ACTIVITY

The end of this phase would see activity building over the Head Bay and over the Northwest Arabian Sea, close to Oman, says the Roundy-Albany tropical activity prediction model. A similar forecast covering the peninsular seas had been made by the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services.

The Northwest Pacific is seen shutting out for the time being, although numerical weather prediction models doubted if the adjoining South China Sea was not preparing to go on its own for a round.

Unlike Hagupit, Jangmi is seen veering towards the north-northeast and grazing the south China coast as it emerges into the open waters of the central Pacific but without much strengthening.

The pulverised Pacific waters have been zapped of much of the kinetic energy required to rustle up another storm and the focus is shifting along the same latitude to the tropical Atlantic and to the southeast coast of the US, now being threatened by the latest Hurricane Kyle.

The London-based Tropical Storm Risk Group estimated that Kyle should be able to make a landfall within the next 24 hours.

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