The Hindu Business Line : Peninsular weather to stay quiet

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct. 29 Peninsular India will continue to stay quiet as the alternating wet-and-dry phase of a passing periodical Madden-Julian Ocean (MJO) wave dictates regional weather over the next week or two.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) said the dry phase would continue for the next four to five days but international numerical weather models see it hold beyond mid-November.

An isolated blob of seasonal rains breaking up over the north Tamil Nadu coast early November might spring a lone surprise as per the assessment by the US Navy’s Fleet Numerological Meteorology and Oceanography Centre.

Scattered showers

The Global Forecast System model of the US National Weather Services saw scattered showers over extreme southwest coast (southwest Kerala) during the week ending November 5.

Sea surface temperatures along the entire southeast coast churned by erstwhile Tropical Cyclone Rashmi continue to be lower compared with those of the rest of the Bay of Bengal. A remnant circulation from the system was still traced to over Meghalaya on Wednesday.

The ‘cool corridor’ along the coast repels approaching systems; on Wednesday, consensus outlook by the US National Centres for Environmental Predictions and the UK Met Office said that nascent cyclonic whirls showing up over extreme east Bay would be forced to swerve in a north-northeast direction.

MJO TAIL WAGS

The tail of an enhanced wet phase of the prevailing MJO wave is just exiting the extreme east Bay – this explains the buzz in that part of the Bay - even as the front-end dropped anchor over neighbouring South China Sea and the adjacent Western Pacific.

Breeding storms and associated easterlies-to-northeasterlies should normally rev up activity over the Bay. But given the none-too-helpful environment in the immediate neighbourhood, no big development was expected any time soon.

The Chennai Met Centre said in its update that the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning saw isolated rainfall over Tamil Nadu and Kerala. Dry weather prevailed over Andhra Pradesh, Lakshadweep and Karnataka.

Forecast for the next two days said that isolated rain or thundershowers are likely to occur over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and coastal Karnataka.

A cyclonic circulation persisted over the east-central Bay of Bengal and adjoining North Andaman Sea on Wednesday.

The system could veer away north-east towards the Myanmar coast.

Another circulation was traced to over Lakshadweep area and neighbourhood. But none of these would have any significant impact over peninsular weather in the short-term.

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