India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) prediction of an above-normal September has coincided with the downgrading of dangerous super typhoon Hinnamnor in the North-West Pacific, which seems to have spared Philippines a direct and potentially disastrous hit, as it moves away into the East China Sea and further towards the Korean Peninsula.

Global models say monsoon flows re-converging over the South China Sea due to the super typhoon may lob in a ‘storm seed’ across Indochina into the Bay of Bengal triggering a low-pressure area or potential depression, intensifying the monsoon in India even as it enters its final phase.

Wet start in South Peninsula

September is a month known for withdrawal of the monsoon from extreme North-West India (Rajasthan and adjoining Gujarat). This might get disrupted thanks to an expected rainfall spell from the incoming low-pressure area or depression. The fledgling dry anticyclone circulation over Rajasthan and Gujarat that normally guides the monsoon withdrawal, will be forced to retreat over the next three days.

Many parts of the Southern Peninsula have already witnessed a wet start to September due to a wave of rainfall propelling itself from the Bay around Sri Lanka and Kanyakumari into Tamil Nadu, Lakshadweep, Kerala and Karnataka. This is a track made infamous by Cyclone Ockhi in 2017, and partially validated by cyclone Tauktae in 2021, as they moved across Lakshadweep and along the West Coast of India.

Heavy rain for Central India

Meanwhile, the incoming depression in the Bay though is forecast to toy with the Odisha/Andhra Pradesh coast yet again, before wading into East-Central India. The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction sees the system triggering very heavy rain over the Odisha/West Bengal coasts as also over South Gujarat/North Konkan (including Mumbai) during the week September 9-17.

Meanwhile, satellite pictures this (Friday) morning showed a build-up of heavy monsoon clouds over the Arabian Sea off the West Coast as an elongated cyclonic circulation waited to the North-East of Lakshadweep and to the immediate West of the Kerala-Karnataka coast. Remnant south-westerlies were forcing themselves around the peninsular tip, along the Gulf of Mannar and into the North Tamil Nadu and adjoining South Andhra Pradesh coast.

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