The Hindu Business Line : Pre-monsoon low in the Bay

Bangkok, April 24 An easterly wave with an embedded circulation is lying in wait in the warming south Andaman Sea and adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal before churning faster to set up the pre-monsoon low in the Bay.

Various available model forecast are unanimous in their outlook that the low would go on to intensify and grow as a strong tropical cyclone to mark the first of the two peak-cyclone peaks (May and September) in the Bay.

An India Meteorological Department outlook said the low would form by Sunday and intensify, while moving in a north-northwest direction during the next three days. The system would roll in tantalisingly close to the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh coast, but recurve to the north-northeast and roar away from India’s southeast coast.

The comparatively longer stay over the warm waters would enable the system to devour abundant moisture and fuel its further growth as it tracks a course towards the Myanmar-Thailand coast and erupt in a landfall around May 2, according to model predictions.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the Ensemble Forecast System (EFS) of the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Centre (FNMOC) of the US Navy and the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) supports this outlook.

Landfall probabilities

Meanwhile, there are odd forecasts suggesting the southeast coast of India (Andhra Pradesh-Orissa) as destination for a possible landfall for the system. But this fails to stand the scrutiny of predictions made by a majority of international models.

The ECMWF has pointed to other two other interesting probabilities; one, the landfalling cyclone leaving a trail steaming in the seas just to the west of Thailand, and two, the northwest Arabian Sea too, getting into the act by tossing up a possible low off the Oman coast that might progressively crawl into the Gujarat coast around May 2.

The brewing low in the Bay is forecast to scale up the rainfall activity over the south Indian peninsula from Saturday onwards. South Tamil Nadu and the Kerala-Karnataka coasts would be particularly impacted in the bargain, the IMD said in its bulletin.

Heat wave conditions

Meanwhile, heat wave conditions developed over isolated pockets of Haryana and some parts of Himachal Pradesh. Current meteorological analysis suggested that the prevailing scenario of above normal maximum temperatures extending to two to four degree Celsius above the normal is likely to continue over many parts of the northwest and central India during the next three days.

A trough-like formation in the east and North-East India will trigger fairly widespread rain or thundershowers over Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh starting Friday to Monday. On Thursday, the highest maximum temperature of 44.1 degree Celsius was recorded at Nagpur and Jalgaon.