As expected, a low-pressure area has formed on Friday off the Andhra Pradesh coast, which should bring some badly needed rain to parts of the South Peninula.

The ‘low’ has also brought back into reckoning an off-shore trough, though feeble and truncated, on the West Coast and extending from Karnataka to Kerala.

Heavy rain likely

The strength of the offshore trough, an elongated area of low pressure that extends from Gujarat to Kerala during peak monsoon, decides the strength and intensity of the monsoon.

An India Met Department outlook for the next five days indicated isolated heavy rain for Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Telangana, North Interior and South Interior Karnataka.

Of these, Kerala (-30 per cent) and Coastal Karnataka (-20 per cent) are in the deficient category while Lakshadadweep (-19 per cent) is on the verge of slipping into this category.

Two more ‘low’s may form in the Bay during the next 10 to 12 days but they may be located far too north to be of significance for the South Peninsula, according to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

Fortnightly outlook

Meanwhile, a forecast for the next two weeks from August 26 to September 8 from India Met Department, Indian Council of Agricultural Reasearch and Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, stated the following:

Normal or above normal rainfall is likely to occur over Jammu & Kashmir, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, South Interior Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Normal or above normal rainfall is likely to occur in either of the two weeks over East Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha, North Interior Karnataka and Coastal Karnataka.

Dry phase

Below normal rainfall is likely over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat State, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra and Marathwada.

Meanwhile, the Met satistics revealed that the dry phase over the South Peninsula from mid July had adversely affected the rainfall figures for the country as a whole.

The rainfall deficit for the country as whole was -28 per cent for the week August 11 to 17 and -27 per cent during August 18 to 24.

These two weeks saw below normal rainfall over Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, Odisha, Saurashtra, Kutch, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

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