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Vinson Kurian

Thiruvananthapuram, April 16 The South China Sea basin now hosts Typhoon Neoguri, a storm with a big footprint but still sometime away from making a landfall, giving it the elbowroom to rustle up more speed and energy while doing so.

Model projections differ on the choice of a destination for a landfall that is expected to happen in the next two days, shuffling it between Vietnam and the Chinese mainland. It is likely that a pulse may drift into the neighbouring Bay of Bengal in either case.

It is also possible that the Bay waters might well have warmed up by that time to toss up a locally generated (‘in situ’) circulation, and progressively the pre-monsoon ‘low,’ according to seasoned weather watchers.

Meanwhile, the Indian landmass has started heating up to set up the right land-sea pressure contrast for pre-monsoon weather to build up. On Wednesday, the ‘line of wind discontinuity’ where opposing wind flows converge has shifted back to straddle the mainland.

The IMD update categorised the ‘line’ as a trough lying extended from Vidarbha to south Tamil Nadu through Marathwada and interior Karnataka. It is here that the dry northwesterlies and moist easterlies from the Bay of Bengal run into each other and set off pre-monsoon thunderstorm activity.

The only irritant to the pre-monsoon heating is the western disturbance active in the north and northwest, but this is expected to sign off sooner than later. April is the month during which the sun bakes the land ahead of the summer monsoon rains. This week has already seen the mercury gallop to the high-40s at many places in central and north-central India.

Parts of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have bore the brunt of the heat wave. According to the IMD, the heat wave is forecast to build in right earnest towards the end of the week. Heat wave conditions have already developed over parts of east Uttar Pradesh, where maximum temperatures are 43 degree Celsius (5{ring}C above normal), the IMD update said on Wednesday.

The prevailing western disturbance is forecast to trigger isolated thunder squalls or hailstorm over the Jammu division of Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Fairly widespread rain or thundershowers would continue over the western Himalayan region over the next 24 hours.

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‘Near-normal’ monsoon may set in early

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