The Hindu Business Line : Monsoon tail wags in south peninsula

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 12 Monsoon may have exited almost the entire northwest and central India, but the withdrawal line has run into a tail wagging merrily in the south.

Most places over Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Lakshadweep and at a few places over coastal and south interior Karnataka recorded rainfall of varying amounts during the 24 hours ending Sunday morning.

Isolated rainfall was reported from Andhra Pradesh.

But India Meteorological Department (IMD) traced an upper air cyclonic circulation the same day over southwest Bay of Bengal in the lower levels of the atmosphere.

NORTHEAST MONSOON

This is now expected to drive fairly widespread rainfall over peninsular India during the next five days and would likely see the northeast monsoon break over the region.

In its forecast, the Chennai Met Centre said thundershowers are likely at many places over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, Lakshadweep and South Coastal Andhra Pradesh and at a few places over Coastal Karnataka.

Isolated rain or thundershowers are likely to occur over North Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rayalaseema and Interior Karnataka.

The rains may scale up in intensity over the next few days.

Meanwhile, wind forecasts by the Global Forecast Model of the US National Weather Services said the easterly-to-northeasterly monsoon winds would gather momentum from October 15, which goes to support the outlook for the onset of the northeast monsoon.

STORMIER SEAS

Short-to-medium forecasts suggest tropical storm activity in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, in that order.

The system will be stronger in the Arabian Sea, while the counterpart in the Bay was forecast to anchor itself off the Orissa coast around October 22.

Sea surface temperatures have continued to warm across the Indian Ocean, with recent daily totals above 30 deg C in the southwest Arabian Sea.

Large portions of the Arabian Sea and the Bay have anomaly magnitudes greater than 1 deg C.

This is expected to support intensification of tropical convection during the next few weeks.

The Bay is forecast to get stormier during the latter weeks of October and early into November, according to some model forecasts.

WITHDRAWAL PHASE

The IMD said on Monday that the southwest monsoon has withdrawn from east Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, north Orissa, north Chhattisgarh, east Madhya Pradesh, west Madhya Pradesh, whole of Gujarat, parts of north Madhya Maharashtra and north Arabian Sea.

The monsoon withdrawal line passed through Purnia, Jamshedpur, Raipur, and Aurangabad.

Rains in east and northeast India as well as over the northern parts of the west coast, which could possibly hold up the onset of northeast monsoon, seem to have all but ended.

FEEBLE DISTURBANCE

A feeble western disturbance is likely to affect the Western Himalayan region from Monday onwards. It is likely to cause scattered precipitation over parts of western Himalayan region during the next three days.

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