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Heavy to very heavy rainfall is forecast over East, Central and North-West India and the West Coast for at least the next 10 days under the influence of a low-pressure area and likely successive systems topped by a monsoon depression in the second week of July, promising to more than wipe out the rainfall deficit and set off flooding rains.
Contrarian signals from seas
This is even as the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) assessed that the 2021-22 La Nina in the Equatorial Pacific, considered monsoon-friendly, may have just ended. But observations and climate model outlooks suggest La Nina may re-form later in the year, giving only breathing space for the Pacific. As a result, the BoM has continued to maintain La Nina watch. This means there is around a 50 per cent chance that La Niña may re-form later this year. This is approximately double the normal likelihood. On the other hand, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) index has been very close to or exceeded the negative IOD thresholds over the past four weeks.
Monsoon rides MJO wave
This means a negative IOD event, which is not good for the Indian monsoon, is increasingly likely this year. But the mixed fortunes from the seas from both the country’s own backyard, and away from it, do not seem to have made an impression on the monsoon, which made the most of a passing and helpful and periodical Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave traversing the Indian Ocean (the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal included), packing clouds, moisture and precipitation. As such was evident in satellite pictures featuring the landmass this (Tuesday) morning.
Heavy clouds converge
Heavy clouds had lined the Gujarat coast as well as the West Coast, extending from Maharashtra and Coastal Karnataka to Kerala. They hung heavy over Bhatiya, Porbandar, Kadach, Keshod, Kutiyana, Una, Mahua, Surat, Valsad, Vadodara, Dahod, Mahesana and Palanpur (Gujarat); Udaipur and Pali (Rajasthan); Mumbai and Ratnagiri, Panaji, Kundapura, Mangaluru and Kannur (coast of Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka and Kerala). They were also parked inland over Central India and East India across Indore, Barwani, Nandurbar, Khandwa, Malegaon, Jalgaon, Shegaon, Washim, Amravati, Jamshedpur, Kharagpur, Balasore, Kamakhyanagar, Bhubaneswar, Brahmapur, Rayagada, Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam and Kakinada.
‘Low’ moves in from East
Also on Tuesday morning, the rain-driving low-pressure area moved West through the previous night to set up a perch over central parts of Madhya Pradesh. The all-important monsoon trough over land passed through Jaisalmer, Bhilwara, the ‘low’ over Central Madhya Pradesh, Pendra Road, Sambhalpur and Balasore before dipping into the East-Central Bay, active but slightly displaced from its ideal alignment. It acts as the highway for monsoon flows from the Bay to penetrate Central India. Meanwhile, the unusual trough from North-West Rajasthan to North-Central Arabian Sea too persisted, forcing the trademark offshore trough to confine itself to a stretch from Gujarat to Maharashtra coast, where the monsoon is most active.
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