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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Dec 14 Weather-making atmospheric systems massing up around the extreme north and south are forecast to decide seasonally recurring regional weather events during this week.

Renewed western disturbance activity would trigger rain and snow over the plains and hilly regions of northwest India while a warm equatorial Indian Ocean is expected to set up scattered wet weather over the extreme south peninsula.

In the northwest, the proceedings would be set into motion as isolated precipitation wets the western Himalayan region from as early as Monday. This is expected to intensify and spill into adjoining plains as the moderately strong western disturbance comes into its own over the next few days.

This would be a boon for the rabi crops which have witnessed record acreages this season. Total area sown under wheat, rapeseed-mustard and gram, the three main crops during the season, is much higher this time.

But crop prospects are also crucially hinged on March temperatures, which, as per early forecasts, are seen holding largely within the ‘comfort zone’ but not without isolated flare-ups.

The Orissa-West Bengal-Jharkhand-east Madhya Pradesh belt has been throwing up signals of consistently above normal temperatures through February-March, according to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

The lingering La Nina-like environment over the equatorial Pacific is known to favour a regime marked by late winter and irregular rain events but colder-than-normal surface temperatures for northwest India. The quasi-La Nina pattern is expected to continue January through March, 2009.

In the south, the equatorial and southeast Indian Ocean lapping the west Indonesian shores and the extended south Pacific house some of the warmest tropical seawaters anywhere across the globe.

Tropical convective forcing from here is forecast to converge over Sri Lanka and the southeast coast of India during the next few days. This would translate into scattered rain events over Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Lakshadweep.

The incoming western disturbance would have the required amplitude to dip south to cover the north and northwest Arabian Sea forcing some of the east to southeasterly monsoon winds to bend north-northeast along the Karnataka and Konkan coasts.

In the process, the core of the seasonal high-pressure region (anti-cyclone) too would get pushed east to over the North Bay of Bengal, allowing moist westerly-to-southwesterly flows to filter into northwest and central India.

India Meteorological Department in its outlook said on Sunday that rain or snow is likely to occur at isolated places over Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday and intensify, thereafter.

Streaks of cloud from a weakening trough from the Lakshadweep region extending into north madhya Maharashtra has jacked up minimum temperatures to above normal by 4-6 deg Celsius over parts of Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, and by 2-5 deg Celsius over Gujarat, north Maharashtra, Telengana.

But they are below normal by 2-3 deg Celsius as the skies cleared over parts of Punjab, Haryana and north Rajasthan after the passage of a predecessor western disturbance. This system is, however, forecast to cause isolated rain or thundershowers on course to the east over Arunachal Pradesh.

More Stories on : Climate & Weather | Climate & Weather

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