The Hindu Business Line : S-E Bay under watch for evolving whirl

Thiruvananthapuram, May 7 Medium-range weather forecasts from the Ministry of Earth Sciences have officially put the southeast Bay of Bengal under watch for an evolving cyclonic circulation by Sunday (May 11) to confirm similar outlook maintained by international models.

This circulation is expected to descend to lower levels and settle as a ‘low’ to establish the southwest monsoon over the Andaman Sea nestling in the larger Bay.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in its update on Wednesday that the rainfall activity is likely to increase over the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and extreme south peninsular India after 48 hours.

NARGIS REMNANTS

Further increase in the rainfall has been forecast from Monday. These rains will be sparked by remnants from the fireworks that Tropical Cyclone Nargis set up over the Myanmar coast on Sunday last. High winds have fanned them up to trigger moderate to fairly widespread rains in the area ever since.

Meanwhile, the Thailand Met Department has announced the onset of the southwest monsoon over the Andaman Sea, the Thai mainland and the Gulf of Thailand. Scattered thundershowers have been lashing eastern and southern parts of the country over the past few days.

A warning put out on the Web site put passing ships on notice for waves in the Andaman Sea which could rise to above two metres. All vessels have been asked to proceed with caution. Prevailing southwesterly winds were clocking 20-35 kmph on Wednesday evening.

Back home, an IMD update said that isolated rain, thundershowers and squalls would continue over northwest and adjoining central India over the next four days as passing western disturbances and their induced upper air cyclonic circulations ravaged the ‘heat low’ over northwest Rajasthan.

Maximum temperatures over these regions are likely to remain below normal or near normal and the IMD saw no heat wave developing during the next five days. Instead, it extended a warning about the possibility of isolated thunder squalls over Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi, Orissa, Bihar, West Bengal and Jharkhand over the next two days.

This has in effect confined the summer-time heating to mainly the southeast of the country, notably south coastal Andhra Pradesh and north coastal Tamil Nadu. Chennai has seen the mercury scale the early 40s over the past few days.

Heat wave conditions over Andhra Pradesh are forecast to abate as the unsettled weather in the northwest and central India drifts in to the southeast coast over the next few days. The heating will then get extended to south coastal Tamil Nadu by May 13, around the time when the Sun resumes baking of northwest Rajasthan, says a German forecaster. This should help the ‘heat low’ to build once again.

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