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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 20 A preparatory cyclonic circulation has sprung up over southwest Bay of Bengal ahead of a likely ‘low’ expected to materialise over the same region during the next two days.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned of isolated heavy rain over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala during this period. Rain or thundershowers are likely to occur at many places over Rayalaseema and Lakshadweep and at a few places over south coastal Andhra Pradesh, south interior Karnataka and costal Karnataka.

What should keep the launch programme of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) Chandrayaan-1 lunar mission at Sriharikota relatively in tact is the ‘draining’ effect on easterly flows from a much stronger weather system in the southwest Arabian Sea.

A chunk of the Bay flows would in this way be directed across the peninsula, leaving the basin just to the north relatively calm. But a ‘low’ is there for the asking, and has to be contended with. Rains as such may not pose a problem but shearing winds, lightning and convective clouds possibly could, meteorologists said.

The system in the southwest Arabian System has on Monday intensified into a depression. The US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre has upgraded as fair the potential for development of a tropical cyclone within the next 24 hours.

According to IMD, the depression lay centred about 800 km east-southeast of Alula of Somalia and 850 km south-southeast of Salalah of Oman. The system is likely to intensify further and move in a west-northwesterly direction towards extreme north Somalia coast and the Gulf of Aden.

According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, a train of easterly waves/cyclonic circulations emerging from Indo-China/South China Sea would keep the Bay in a state of churn for the rest of the month.

The odd system is shown to break away and move initially north before turning north-west, its intensification capped by the strength of westerly flows.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Climate & Weather

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