The Hindu Business Line : Bay whirl hangs too far east for south’s comfort

Thiruvananthapuram, July 6 An upper air circulation has materialised over the Bay of Bengal on Sunday, but too far east (as against a more westerly bearing seen in earlier forecasts) for rain-deficit southern peninsula’s comfort.

The south could, at best, hope for spill-over impact from the denouement, which was evidenced to some extent on Sunday in the weak troughing and associated clouding across the southwest coast and the central peninsula.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) said that the circulation lay over Bangladesh and neighbourhood on Sunday. It is expected to cause fairly widespread rainfall over Gangetic West Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa and north Chhattisgarh during the next two days.

Isolated heavy to very heavy falls is also likely over Orissa too during the same period.

A warning issued by the IMD and valid for the next two days said that isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over west Uttar Pradesh, north Madhya Pradesh and Orissa.

Isolated heavy rainfall is also likely over Haryana, West Bengal and Sikkim during the next 24 hours.

WEST COAST RAINS

But the IMD also saw an increase in rainfall activity along the west coast, north Maharashtra, Gujarat and East Rajasthan from Wednesday. This could mean some badly needed precipitation for Marathawada and Vidarbha.

Rain-deficit Kerala too is looking to get some share of what looks like an emerging three-day spell but this may not go to make any drastic change to the scenario in which the largely hydel-powered State has resorted to load shedding during peak evening hours.

The largest hydel reservoir at Idukki is said to be draining away fast to the ‘dead storage level’ and the top brass of the Kerala State Electricity Board is huddling into impromptu sessions to discuss ways to tide over the situation and prevent industries from ‘shutting out.’

What seems to have done in the ‘monsoon gateway’ State has been the absence of a strong ‘low’ around the southeast Arabian Sea near to its coast, which is a given during a properly evolved monsoon and is instrumental in pulling the current northward along the coast.

Instead, monsoon systems have anomalously been prominent in east India where the flows have been dragged to in a pattern playing out to this day. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has, however, ventured to suggest a trough developing off the Kerala coast around the middle of this week. But this would bear some watching.

PROSPECTIVE TRACK

Forecasters here are of the view that the new Bay circulation would roll into the seasonal monsoon trough over land, cross east India and north-central India to head ultimately into northwest India. This trough will have to shift from its anomalously north position to a more southerly alignment before any meaningful spurt of rains can unfold over peninsular India.

Only by a well-defined monsoon ‘low’ or depression alone could make this possible, and no sign of such a system emerging was available just yet.

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