• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Nov. 12 The build-up to the initiation of the low-pressure area over southeast Bay of Bengal was apace on Wednesday with piloting northeasterlies continuing to dump moisture over parts of the southern peninsula.

The preparatory trough of ‘low’ lay in wait over southeast Bay even as an upper air cyclonic circulation hung over the southwest Bay, off the Sri Lankan coast.

Acting in tandem, the two systems were responsible for guiding the moisture-laden winds along a curvature that passed by the southeast coast of India into Sri Lanka.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in an update on Wednesday that the ‘low’ was likely to form during the next 24 hours. Numerical weather prediction models indicated its initial west-northwestwards movement, leading to an increase in rainfall activity over south peninsula.

The winds are expected to be more easterly from Thursday onwards, with its impact reaching to more parts of the southern peninsula.

The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre said in its update the area of convection was located approximately 575 nautical miles (1060 km) east-southeast of Chennai. Animated satellite imagery showed scattered deep convection developing on the peripheries of a slowly consolidating low-level circulation center (LLCC), the rallying point of a building storm. The disturbance still enjoys the advantages of low to moderate vertical wind shear and favourable diffluence aloft (window effect).

The emerging wet weather is expected to flourish given the benign presence of an enhanced convective phase of a passing Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave. But, according to latest updates, this phase will transit the Indian Ocean in quick time and may thus cap the longevity of the wet regime.

The rains may not able to hold beyond November 17, following which another dry phase would settle over the peninsula, according to this update. This would last until December 7, when it would yield place to another MJO-neutral phase (as against a full-blown ‘wet’ phase) with limited gains in terms of expected rainfall.

Meanwhile in the north, current meteorological analysis and numerical weather prediction models suggest that an incoming western disturbance is expected to cause scattered precipitation over the western Himalayan region during the next three days.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Climate & Weather

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line