Dry run in South; rain surplus down to 2%

With two days to go for the season to end, the monsoon surplus has come down by another notch to two per cent on Wednesday.

This is mainly attributed to the ‘dry run' in peninsular India, which hasn't had any meaningful rain for well over the past week.

SURPLUS DOWN

Regional surplus in peninsular India has wound down to one per cent, and could slip further a notch or two unless the expected rain wave from South China Sea hits the southeast coast in time.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects isolated rains to materialise over south peninsular India over the next three days.

The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction sees the southerly rains gradually propagating to the north along the west coast and adjoining internal peninsula during the week ending October 5.

These rains are shown to be getting stronger in the south during the week that follows, indicating the possibility of an early onset of the north-east monsoon (monsoon in reverse).

PACIFIC STORMS

Some rains are shown to break out over north-east India and adjoining east India during the period under reference.

Meanwhile, a fresh tropical storm, Nalgae, has spun up over north-west Pacific and is shown tracking to the northern tip of the Philippines already battered by typhoon Nesat.

Nesat has weakened and has entered the South China Sea as a tropical storm. London-based Tropical Storm Risk Group does not see the storm re-intensifying as a typhoon.

LIKELY LANDFALL

Nesat is heading for a landfall over Vietnamese coast, which is the likely path to be followed by tropical storm Nalgae.

The churn in the South China Sea being triggered by the two storms is what might likely get the Bay of Bengal to the immediate west into action and trigger rains over the southern peninsular India.

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