The Hindu Business Line : Onset window opens for northeast monsoon

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 13 The southward-bound anti-cyclone driving dry weather and a weather-causing circulation over southwest Bay of Bengal combined to feed a nascent northeasterly-to-easterly flow over the southern peninsula on Monday.

The southwesterlies flanking the anti-cyclone and the northwesterlies caressing the top of the Bay circulation (tagged 98B) act as giant flywheels grinding away in opposite direction to promote the flow now in seasonal transition.

The ongoing showers marking this phase are still being accounted under the (spill-over) southwest monsoon head. But India Meteorological Department (IMD) has kept open the onset window for the ‘monsoon in reverse’ (or the northeast monsoon) from Thursday onwards.

ARABIAN SEA ‘LOW’

A low-pressure area is likely to form over southeast Arabian Sea around Friday, which may subsequently intensify. Some models saw the system moving initially north-northeast towards the north Kerala coast under strong westerly influence.

But the northeasterly-to-easterly flows over the peninsula would have accelerated to sufficient strength to haul away the system into the central and west-central Arabian Sea. It is later forecast to become a tropical storm off the Yemen coast.

Meanwhile, the Bay of Bengal too is expected to see some activity around this time (October 25), according to sustained outlook by the Paul Roundy model that tracks tropical cyclogenesis (birth of storms) around the globe.

The Global Forecast Model (GFS) of the US National Weather Services said the Arabian Sea would witness strong easterly flows during the build-up to the predicted storm.

The GFS precipitation forecast suggested that a bulk of the rains during the next seven days would fall in a ‘V’ linking coastal Karnataka and entire Kerala, adjoining south interior Karnataka, interior Tamil Nadu, coastal Tamil Nadu and south coastal Andhra Pradesh.

The Chennai Met Centre said in its update on Monday that rainfall occurred at most places over Tamil Nadu and at a few places over Kerala and coastal and south interior Karnataka. Isolated rainfall occurred over Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema and Lakshadweep.

Forecast for the next two days said rain or thundershowers are likely to occur at many places over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, Lakshadweep, and at a few places over south coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema and coastal and south interior Karnataka.

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