Heavy rains forecast for parts of North-West during next three days

The monsoon backbone represented by the off-shore trough along the South-West coast, the receptacle for monsoon flows from the Arabian Sea, has weakened on Tuesday, clearing up the skies over parts of Kerala and Coastal Karnataka.

Instead, the clouds have migrated mainly to North-West, and a lesser extent to East India, with the crucial monsoon trough aligning along the normal position. The previous day’s low-pressure area merged into it and weakened. This trough has a crucial role to play in ensuring rains along with time and space for the farming heartland of the country.

Rains for deficit areas

Given this context, the IMD has forecast fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with heavy to very heavy falls over major parts of North-West India, including the rain-deficit hills and the adjoining plains of Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh the during next two to three days.

Fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with heavy to very heavy falls are forecast for Gujarat state, East Rajasthan and parts of Central India for the next four days until Independence Day. Isolated extremely heavy falls are also likely over Gujarat state and East Rajasthan while it would be isolated heavy to very heavy over the northern parts of Konkan and Goa on August 14-15.

The most torrential rainfall are expected over the next three days are at the following places: Mandsaur, Agar, Bhopal, Gadarwara, Sagar, Hatta, Chhatarpur, Jhansi, Orai, Gwalior, Hindaun, Baler, Tonk, Kota, Amroha, Bareilly, Korba, Kamakhyanagar, Jagdalpur, Bijapur,and te Ghat areas of Nashik, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Hubballi, Sirsi, Kundapura, Mangaluru, Kannur, Kozhikode, and Kumily.

Monsoon trough aligns well

The monsoon trough lay extended on Tuesday from Bikaner and Sikar (Rajasthan) to Gwalior and Sidhi (Madhya Pradesh); Dehri and Dhanbad (Bihar); and Kolkata, before extending southeastwards into the North-East Bay of Bengal. The south-eastern tip of the trough stays moored into the Bay waters is pregnant with the possibility of birth of a low-pressure area.

And this is what precisely the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has been indicating over the past couple of days. The next in the current series (third back-to-back system) is expected to form by Thursday over the North-West Bay. It is projected that this too may follow the path of the predecessor and get ensconced into the comfort of the larger monsoon trough.

Heavy rain recorded

The 24 hours ending Tuesday morning has already witnessed heavy to very heavy rainfall over Konkan and Goa; Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand. It was heavy over Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Madhya Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, Meghalaya, East Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, hills of West Bengal and Sikkim.

Rainfall recorded in cm during this period are: Ratnagiri-19; Pasighat-15; Goa/Panjim-14; Deoprayag-13; Bhairamgarh-12; Vengurla-12; Mormugao and Mussoorie-11; Ambala, Bageshwar, Chamoli and Ukhimath-10; Jalpaiguri, Kopkot, Roorkee and Berinag-9; Rohtak, Gasud, Haripur and Matheran-8; Mahabaleshwar, Desuri, Govindgarh, Shahabad, Jaipur Tehsil, Forbesganj and Dhubri-7; Mount Abu, Usoor, Keshod and Harnai-6; and Vallabh, Vidyanagar, Chadrapur and Imphal-5 each.

Rainfall outlook for week

Outlook for Wednesday said heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, East Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha and Gujarat Region while it would be heavy over Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, hills of West Bengal, Sikkim, Odisha, Assam, Meghalaya, the Ghat areas of Madhya Maharashtra, Konkan and Goa, Telangana and Coastal Karnataka.

An extended forecast valid for August 16-18 said that fairly widespread to widespread rainfall/thundershowers might lash the Konkan-Karnataka coasts, East-Central India and North-East India. Isolated heavy to very heavy falls are also likely over East-Central India; the North-Eastern States; the Konkan-Karnataka coast; Gujarat state; Rajasthan; and parts of Uttar Pradesh.

On Tuesday, the monsoon-friendly shear zone of turbulence ran West to East between a latitude to the North of Mumbai; Nanded-Waghala; Nagpur, Raipur and Jagdalpur; ending at Bhubaneshwar. The cyclonic circulation over South-West Bay off Tamil Nadu has merged with the shear zone, the playground in the upper levels where monsoon systems to roam free.

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