Thundershowers to break out over Central and East India from next week

The India Met Department has said that interaction between a passing western disturbance over North-West India and an easterly trough in the South would trigger thundershowers over Central and East India.

This is likely to happen from Tuesday (February 16) as the western disturbance crosses in across the Indo-Pak border, the Met said in its bulletin on Thursday evening.

In the South, the Bay of Bengal has been in animated state thanks to the presence of a low-pressure area over South-East Bay of Bengal and adjoining Equatorial Indian Ocean.

The Met expected it to intensify one round to become a well-marked low-pressure area and rush in towards the South-East coast of Sri Lanka. After impacting the Lankan coast it would weaken, but a remnant is forecast to wheel towards the Gulf of Mannar and wallop the adjoining coast of Tamil Nadu.

The Canadian Meteorological Centre suggested that the ‘low’ would travel to West towards the South of Sri Lanka from where it would curl in East-Northeast into Kerala during February 11 to 17.

This failed to find favour with most other international forecasters who see the system may moving South-Southwest from South-East Bay of Bengal and further away from even Sri Lanka. But moisture-laden winds emanating from the system would impact Sri Lanka and adjoining Tamil Nadu and blow further into Peninsular and Central India.

They would fill up the Central plains just in time for a meeting with a potent western disturbance and its offspring circulation that is expected to roll in over Rajasthan and adjoining Gujarat from Feb 16.

Meanwhile, thundershowers have been triggered at many places over Kerala as well as parts of East India during the last 24 hours ending on Thursday morning. The causative trough of low in the South lay extended from the Comorin region to South-East Arabian Sea off the Karnataka coast.

The disturbance in the South Bay of Bengal and adjoining Comorin region is being attributed to the eastward movement of a Madden-Julian Oscillation wave, which builds up clouds and associated rain over ground.

Over East India, confluence of winds has been taking place after north-westerly winds from a prevailing western disturbance ran into moist South-Easterly winds blowing in from North Bay of Bengal. It brought thundershowers to many places of Arunachal Pradesh and isolated places over Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura.