The Hindu Business Line : Maharashtra, AP under threat of more rains

The National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecast (NCMRWF) has acknowledged that the preparatory `low' expected to form by Friday and headed west-northwest could spin fast into a depression the very next day, while still hovering over seawaters.

RARE INSTANCE

Forecast about a system intensifying into a depression made three to four days in advance of its genesis is rare, and lends itself to drawing inferences about the latter's chances of further intensification. It could progress to become a named cyclone, provided other factors do not interfere, say some forecasters.

Graphics put out by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) indicate that the core of winds packing the system clocking upwards of 30 m/s in speed and crossing land over the Orissa/Andhra coast likely by Sunday/Monday.

PACIFIC BUSY

Farther to the east but forming part of the same elongated monsoon trough, three major weather systems are raging in the Western Pacific basin.

Of these, one has been elevated to typhoon status (Typhoon Saomai) on Monday while the others are named cyclones (`Bopha' and `Maria'). The brewing `low' is seen as being triggered by a remnant of these systems reaching into the Bay, since `in situ' formations are ruled out at this point of time locally.

This is latest proof, if it were needed, of the monsoon system playing out to the script of the 15-day `intraseasonal mode' in which the Bay has a big role.

The continuing disquiet on the Arabian Ocean front, which is active normally during the `40-day mode' of monsoon, indicates that Kerala (21 per cent below normal) and, to a lesser extent neighbouring Tamil Nadu (37 per cent below normal) will miss the action.

AGRO ADVISORY

Meanwhile, the weekly agro advisory from the NCMRWF said that farmers in Central India, Maharashtra and Telangana, could complete paddy transplantation vigorously and provide adequate drainage in fields where oilseed, pulse crops, sugarcane and cotton crops are standing.

In the cotton growing regions of Central, Western and Southern India, fields lying vacant may be used to grow short duration crops such as black gram, green gram, soyabean, cowpea, sorghum and pearl millet in place of cotton.

In Karnataka, the time is ideal for planting finger millet.

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