The Hindu Business Line : Monsoon could witness intense storms

Thiruvananthapuram April 2 Projections of a surplus monsoon this year have brought with it fears of more than usual number of storms impacting both the southwest and southeast coasts of the country with a ferocity not witnessed in the recent past.

The Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal arms of the impending monsoon are predicted to evolve as strong systems and, importantly, retain their strength through the better part of the season. A nascent La Nina event in the equatorial east Pacific, the colder counterpart of an El Nino, is what will keep them in good stead.

STORM BREEDER

La Nina would mean that the warming of the east Pacific (or El Nino) will taper off, and would propagate itself to the west Pacific basin, which is closer to India. Warming seas are the breeding grounds for storms, and storm activity in the west Pacific has always had a catalytic impact on the Indian monsoon.

Predictions by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) say that the West Pacific and the South China Sea region would witness heightened convective activity during the build-up to the monsoon.

This would in turn help fire up the Bay of Bengal arm and maintain a train of weather events in `low's, depressions and even cyclones making landfall along the southeast coast and moving inland with a trademark north-northwest orientation.

STRONG FLOWS

Meanwhile, the Arabian Sea arm is depicted to being fed constantly by strong cross-equatorial flows off the Somali coast.

The ECMWF graphics indicate excess precipitation all along the southwest coast right up from the Kerala coast to the Konkan and even the Gujarat coast.

According to Dr Akhilesh Gupta of the Department of Science and Technology, this bears a close resemblance to the 2005 situation when intense precipitation flooded Mumbai and Chennai.

Strong monsoon flows impacting the Western Ghats could set up `monsoon vortices' that could trigger massive cloudbursts.

Mid-tropospheric cyclones (MTCs) over the Gujarat region are another probability from strong monsoon flows.

Unlike `low's or depressions, MTCs could linger for a much longer time and cause intense rainfall in the process.

Year 2005 saw at least one MTC in action.

The Arabian Sea basin was surprisingly silent throughout the 2005 season with no cyclones being reported, while the Bay of Bengal was active with seven cyclones (two of them being named ones - `Fanoos' and `Baaz'). The 2007 season is promising to be entirely different, if projections are anything to go by.

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