All may not be clear for Mohali for the Indo-Pak cricket match

A weather warning issued by India Meteorological Department (IMD) this (Wednesday) morning has said that isolated dust storms or thunderstorms accompanied with squalls with wind speed exceeding 65 km/hr may stalk the plains over Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh until tomorrow.

Though this suggest ring-fencing of the Mohali cricket stadium in neighbouring Chandigarh from weather-induced trouble for the day-and-night World Cup semi-final between arch rivals India and Pakistan later today, the last word may not have been said yet on this front.

Late evening thunderstorms are a possibility the organisers need to contend with during this time of the year when cooler northwesterlies unfold even as a heated surface waits in anticipation.

The moisture build-up is what could prove crucial in the final analysis, and the IMD expects this to be in the region of 70 per cent.

This is ‘neither here nor there’, but what should provide some comfort is the fact that the weather-maker upper air cyclonic circulation sitting smack over Punjab and adjoining north Rajasthan and Haryana from overnight has since moved away to the southeast.

An offspring of a prevailing western disturbance that is now in the process of signing off from the northwest, the circulation merely got dragged away to the east in tandem with the movement of the parent disturbance.

On Wednesday morning, the IMD traced the circulation to over central Uttar Pradesh. The system has, in turn, broken open a ‘trough couple’ extending in both forward (southeast to north Orissa) and backward (southwest to southwest Rajasthan) directions.

The IMD said in its update in the morning that western disturbance over Jammu and Kashmir and neighbourhood is moving away eastwards.

A fresh western disturbance would affect western Himalayan region from Friday onwards. The low pressure area over south Andaman Sea now persisted over southeast Andaman Sea and neighbourhood.

Satellite imagery early on Wednesday showed the presence of convective clouds over parts of south Andaman Sea and southeast Bay of Bengal.

A short-term forecast said that scattered widespread rain or snow would occur over Jammu and Kashmir and isolated over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand until Friday and increase thereafter.

Scattered rain or thundershowers would occur over Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Kerala.

Fairly widespread rain or thundershowers may unfold over sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and the Northeastern States.

It would be isolated over Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and rest of south peninsular India.

Gradual rise is indicated in maximum and minimum temperatures over the plains of northwest and adjoining west and central India until the weekend.

Extended forecast until Monday said that fairly widespread rain or thundershowers would occur over the Northeastern States.

Meanwhile until evening on Tuesday, fairly widespread rain or snow occurred over Jammu and Kashmir while it was scattered over Himachal Pradesh.

Scattered rainfall occurred over the Northeastern States and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Maximum temperatures fell by 2-4 degree Celsius over parts of Assam and Arunachal Pradesh and by 2-3 degree Celsius over isolated pockets of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

They were above normal by 2-4 degree Celsius over parts of Himachal Pradesh, north Madhya Pradesh, south east Gujarat and Konkan and isolated pockets of Punjab and Rajasthan.

The maxima were below normal by 2-4 degree Celsius over parts of the Northeastern States, West Bengal, Sikkim and Bihar and near normal over rest of the country.

The highest maximum temperature of 42.0 degree Celsius was recorded at Bhira in Maharashtra.

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