Rains set to revive over Central, Peninsular India next week

The Indian monsoon is seen taking cues from the South China Sea to engineer a revival that would see rains once again scale up over Central India and the adjoining Peninsular region.

The revival is expected to materialise from next week, an outlook maintained by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts since the past few days said.

Key to the revival of the monsoon are back-to-back storms/typhoons in the South China Sea, next door to the Bay of Bengal.

Tropical storm Mirinae in the basin has already made landfall over Hanoi in Vietnam, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre of the US Navy.

Since the storm has been travelling in a west-northwest direction (towards Indo-China and the Bay), this is already sending in a ‘pulse’ across Myanmar into the Bay waters.

A follow-up typhoon developing in the South China Sea and hitting South-West China should further reinforce the flows headed into the Bay.

According to the European Centre, this would set up the much-awaited low-pressure area in the Bay and revive the monsoon.

Projections given out by the India Met Department also seem to support this scenario; only, they suggest that the ‘low’ may gather further strength in the Bay.

The Met sees a full-fledged ‘low’ in place in the Bay by August 2 (Tuesday), dropping anchor close to Kolkata and the Bangladesh coast and staying put for two more days at the least.

It should pull in the monsoon flows from the Arabian Sea and across Central India and adjoining Peninsular India to signal the return of the rains.

The US Climate Prediction Centre sees Central India, northern parts of the West Coast and West India (including Saurashtra-Kutch and Rajasthan) getting moderate to heavy rains, by turn, until August 9.

The European Centre has already come out with a long-term outlook for August and September predicting normal rain for most parts of the country and above normal for parts of the South Peninsula.

During the 24-hour period that ended on Thursday morning, the monsoon has ‘vigorous’ or ‘active’ not only over North-West India but also over parts of Central India and Peninsular India.

An India Met update said the monsoon was ‘vigorous’ over Jammu and Kashmir and Telangana during this period and ‘active’ over Uttarakhand, Odisha, East Rajasthan, West Madhya Pradesh, Marathawada, Vidarbha, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema, and South Interior Karnataka.

Heavy rain was reported from North-West Rajasthan, West Uttar Pradesh, Vidarbha, Marathawada, the North-Eastern States and Tamil Nadu.

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