The Hindu Business Line : Wheat regions may get rains from Friday

Thiruvananthapuram, March 18 Maximum temperatures have risen by 4-5 deg Celsius over parts of north Rajasthan and the western Himalayan region even as a weather-maker western disturbance lay in wait over north Pakistan and adjoining Jammu and Kashmir.

The prevailing meteorological conditions suggest a rise of about 2 deg Celsius in mercury over these regions during the next three days, an India Meteorological Department (IMD) update said on Wednesday.

The IMD also cited numerical weather prediction models to suggest the anticipated arrival of two fresh western disturbances in quick succession during Thursday to Tuesday next.

The IMD has forecast isolated rain or thundershowers over Jammu & Kashmir during next 24 hours and at a few places thereafter.

TO SHIFT EAST

The thundershower activity would later shift south-southeast to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarkhand from Thursday. From Friday on, more regions in the neighbourhood from Punjab and Haryana to West Uttar Pradesh are expected to be brought under the wet weather. Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh would get covered in this manner.

As the week turns over, the belt of thundershowers would have extended from northwest India and Rajasthan to the north-eastern States, the IMD said.

According to Dr Akhilesh Gupta, Senior Adviser, Department of Science and Technology, maximum and minimum temperature regime in the northwest would be in ‘constant churn’ given the chain of atmospheric events triggered by the movement of back-to-back western disturbances.

This is being attributed to the changing wind direction, the extent of moisture carry, cloud formation and precipitation amounts - even the ‘passing’ of the western disturbances to the east is itself an event of significance.

WHEAT CROP

The expected light precipitation is neither good nor bad for the rabi wheat crop, now mostly in the harvesting stage. But a heavy spell is the last thing farmers want, especially those who have kept the harvested grains in the open.

The belt of thundershowers is forecast to move from northwest all the way to the North-East, with expected precipitation levels reaching up to 2 cm occasionally, according to an assessment by the International Research Institute (IRI) for Climate and Society at Columbia University.

The weather in northwest and northeast is in the transition stage, and has been throwing up some tell-tale signs to the effect. One of them is the early morning haze in places such as Guwahati, which has forced diversion of flights on more than one occasion in the recent past.

‘KAL BAISAKHI’

This is the clearest evidence that the climes are changing. Even the feeblest of eastward-moving western disturbances would now be able to trigger seasonal thunderstorms and rain in the east and the North-East India thanks to a west-southwesterly (from Bay of Bengal) component in the northwesterly disturbance.

The emerging season in the east and North-East India is called ‘kal baisakhi’ (caused by the moisture-laden Nor’westers, as they are called locally).

Late March to early April is the usual timeline for the activity to be set off.

Meanwhile, the IMD has forecast isolated rain or thundershowers over sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim over the next two to three days. Isolated rain or thundershowers are also likely over Orissa, Gangetic West Bengal and Jharkhand.

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