Fresh ‘low' in Bay may worsen flooding

Monday's upper air cyclonic circulation over north-west Bay of Bengal has promptly deepened into a low-pressure system, threatening to pour it down over the flood-hit parts of east India.

In fact, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has put the system under watch for at least a round of intensification to become ‘well-marked'.

TO TAKE TIME

Global models see the system taking its own time to wash over completely over land. The stay of water would only go to add to its potency and productivity.

The expectation is that the ‘low' would not be home and dry until Saturday soon after which it would be gulped up by an advancing westerly system. This would tentatively give a window of at least three days during when monsoon easterlies from the low-pressure system can interact with the westerlies from an existing western disturbance.

INTERACTIVE RAIN

The interactive rains would lash north-west India and adjoining east India during this period. The ‘low' would later meet with a ‘sudden death' after coming into contact with an advancing ‘monsoon withdrawal' line from the northwest.

The west coast and central India are also expected to benefit from the rains as cross-equatorial flows would keep the offshore trough active and sustain precipitation during this period leading up to death of the ‘low'.

A weather warning from the IMD valid for the next two days said that isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur over coastal Karnataka and Kerala.

WEATHER WARNING

Isolated heavy rainfall would also break out over coastal areas of Orissa and north Andhra Pradesh during this period.

An outlook valid until the weekend said that fairly widespread rain or thundershowers would occur over many parts of the country outside southeast peninsular India, Rajasthan and Gujarat where it may be isolated.

The overall monsoon has been retained with widespread rainfall having been reported from Saurashtra, Kutch, coastal Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands during the last 24 hours ending on Tuesday morning.

It was fairly widespread over east Gujarat, Konkan and Goa.

Scattered rain fell over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, east Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, coastal Andhra Pradesh, south interior Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

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