The Hindu Business Line : Land features mellow `Fanoos'

TOPOGRAPHY of the point of landfall forced Tropical Cyclone Fanoos to smash its underbelly against the island mass of Sri Lanka, letting open a pressure valve on the left flank and sparing the adjoining south Tamil Nadu coast collateral damage.

The system weakened into a deep depression on impacting land as it crossed Vedaranyam on the south Tamil Nadu coast on Saturday. Earlier, the storm had cranked itself up to being a severe cyclone storm before the land feature intervened, says the London-based Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) Group.

With landfall, the degeneration happened very fast, first into a depression the same day and a `low' over the south Tamil Nadu coast on Sunday morning. It is likely to weaken further, said Dr Akhilesh Gupta of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF).

But it will still be able to cause scattered to fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy falls over Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Lakshadweep during the next 24 hours. Subsequently, the rainfall activity is likely to decrease further.

Both the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JWTC) and the UK Met Office are of the opinion that the system will dissipate as a significant tropical cyclone by Monday over land at Rajapalayam and neighbourhood.

But Dr Gupta doubted if the remnant of `Fanoos' would proceed to set up a low-pressure area in the Arabian Sea at this time of the year. Circulatory features associated with the Arabian Sea in December do not support such an eventuality although the Bay of Bengal has had a history of hosting cyclonic circulations during this month. As for the east-west shear zone, the location has shifted more south of the peninsula, around the 10 deg latitude.

Now, an `easterly wave': The NCMRWF has now forecast an `easterly wave' being propagated from the South China Sea and concentrated as a cluster of convective cloud formations over Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia impacting south Tamil Nadu coast and adjoining Sri Lanka by the weekend (December 15-16).

Easterly waves are known for the speeds with which they propagate from east to the west, sticking to the same zone as they did so. They can trigger some rain on their own, but, importantly, can help catalyse incipient circulations into weather systems over sea.

There have been instances in which these waves have proceeded to set up `lows' in the Bay waters. Given this background, the progress of the impending wave will be watched closely.

The European Centre for Medium-Term Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) has forecast the system generating a wet session in south Tamil Nadu, which would extend to the Kerala coast.

In its forecast for the next four-five days, the NCMRWF has said that scattered to fairly widespread rains with isolated heavy falls are likely over Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry, Kerala and Lakshadweep during the next 24 hours and decrease thereafter.

Scattered to fairly widespread rains are likely over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands during next four days. Isolated rains are also likely in coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema and south interior Karnataka.

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