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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan. 2 Fog conditions prevailed over parts of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar even as India Meteorological Department expected the intensity and duration to reduce during the next three days.

Minimum temperatures were below normal by 2-3 Deg Celsius during the past 24 hours over the Indo-Gangetic plains and adjoining central India, reeling from cold after a western disturbance exited the region.

But, as has been forecast already, arrival on Saturday of a fresh western disturbance with an embedded weather-maker cyclonic circulation would cause minimum temperatures to rise by 2-4 Deg Celsius. The system is expected to trigger snowfall or rainfall over the hilly regions and bring about cloudy conditions and isolated rainfall over the adjoining plains. Some models say that patches of wet climes might extend into central India as well.

The persistent cloud cover will ensure a fall in day time temperatures through the `filtering’ action wherein some of the incoming solar radiation would be trapped.

By the same token, night temperatures are expected to rise as the cloud cover prevents solar radiation from escaping into space. But the mercury will head south after the western disturbance leaves the region to east-northeast.

According to the Global Forecast System (GFS) model run by the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services, the Sri Lankan and Tamil Nadu coast might witness the first few showers of an emerging wet weather during the week ending January 9.

This would come about as a belt of convection gets propagated from the northwestern tip of the Indonesian archipelago into adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal and further west (towards Sri Lanka and peninsular India).

The GFS wind projections indicate that the low-level dry northeasterlies from the northwest plains and passing over the cool waters of the North Bay of Bengal would gradually give in to moisture-laden easterlies over the south Bay during the five days starting January 6.

Supporting this scenario is the forecast from the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric System of the US Navy, which sees the ‘ridge’ (anti-cyclone) formation unwinding and loosening grip, to be reduced to a weak circulation over the Lakshadweep area around January 8. The incoming western disturbance over the northwest and resurgent easterlies from the south would combine to hasten the demise of this anti-cyclone even as a remnant starts building to the northwest.

The US-based Centre for Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Studies sees this helping usher in organised wet weather into coastal Tamil Nadu and south Kerala.

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