The monsoon is literally spitting fire over the western parts as extremely heavy to very heavy rain lashed the region overnight on Wednesday morning.

It is in this background that forecasts for another low-pressure area in northwest Bay of Bengal assumes significance.

Mutant ‘low’ India Met Department seems to agree with international agencies that the next ‘low’ might show up around August 5 over the Head North Bay of Bengal.

Its genesis is interesting in that it would be a mutant of an existing well-marked ‘low’ stopped on its tracks inland by a prankster circulation over west Madhya Pradesh-Gujarat.

In fact, this persisting circulation is primarily for the extreme heavy to very heavy precipitation over west Maharashtra, Gujarat and Konkan-Mumbai over the past few days. The circulation is gathering strength from the fury of the flows it is managing to draw from the Arabian Sea as also to the east from the Bay of Bengal.

No quarters given It has refused to allow space for Bay ‘low’ to land on terra firma for a second day on Wednesday. This is since two strong monsoon systems cannot co-exist over land except in rare conditions.

The Bay ‘low’ will manage to emerge over land over Gangetic West Bengal by Thursday but will be forced to move to the opposite direction (north-east India) until after the circulation over Gujarat weakens.

The weakening trend will allow the ‘low’ to revert from the hills in the North-East and ease down its way into the Head Bay of Bengal by August 5.

The track from here is yet to be ascertained, but the US Climate Prediction Centre does not see much scope for the kind of heavy rain triggered over land in the previous round.

Heavy showers Still, a round of very heavy precipitation is in order for Madhya Pradesh and adjoining south-east and south-west Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, south-east Bihar, Chhattisgarh and west Odisha until August 5.

Meanwhile, the monsoon pyrotechnics flooded East Rajasthan, west Maharashtra, Gujarat, west Madhya Pradesh and parts of the West Coast during the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning.

The blitzkrieg is forecast to continue variously for a couple of days more, the Met Office said.

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