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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, June 4

Conditions have become favourable for further advance of the monsoon in some more parts of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and coastal Orissa during the next three days, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Thursday.

The IMD update came even as the currently erratic monsoon forced north coastal Andhra Pradesh and adjoining Orissa to go under heat wave conditions yet again.

The forecast for a ‘low’ to pop up in North Bay of Bengal has been maintained, says Dr Ranjeet Singh of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (MCMRWF). The system was expected to materialise by Saturday.

A helpful offshore trough from Karnataka to Kerala coasts may have become less marked but this vital monsoon enabling feature would spring back to life on Saturday, according to model predictions at NCMRWF.

This would more or less coincide with the formation of the ‘low’ in the Bay and help drag in the sulking monsoon current towards the west coast.

The offshore trough and the ‘orographic’ effect (‘lifting’ motion by the Western Ghats) would combine to spark heavy rainfall along the west coast but comparably muted activity to the leeward side (interior Maharashtra and Karnataka).

These areas would need to wait until the formation of a typical monsoon ‘low’ in the Bay that travels copybook style to the west-northwest, crosses the southeast coast and rolls into central India to drive in rains.

There is no sure-fire forecast of such a system materialising anytime soon.

The IMD cited numerical weather prediction models to continue to suggest strengthening of the pressure gradient from the ‘high’ over Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal to the seasonal trough of low pressure over mainland India.

Model predictions at the NCMRWF suggested that the area of ‘cyclogenesis’ (birth of the system) could be anywhere in the north-central to northeast Bay.

The system is expected to undergo a round of intensification. As for lateral movement, these models favoured an eastward to northeast-ward track for a rendezvous with the Myanmar coast.

Subsequent to landfall, the rain bands may probe adjoining Bangladesh and the Northeastern States of India, the NCMRWF said in forecasts that were generally in agreement with those of international models.

An IMD warning valid for the next two days said that isolated heavy rainfall is likely over Andaman and Nicobar Islands during the next two days. Scattered to fairly widespread rains are likely over the west coast (mainly coastal Karnataka) and the Northeastern States from Sunday.

A fresh western disturbance is likely to cause isolated to scattered rain or thundershowers over western Himalayan region during next three days. Associated barrage of winds would have a major say on where the brewing Bay ‘low’ is headed - which is east.

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