Low weakens, but rains may stay for 3-4 days

The rain-driving well-marked low-pressure area was located half over land and the rest over water along North Andhra Pradesh coast and adjoining West-Central Bay of Bengal on Wednesday where it has weakened into a conventional low-pressure area, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

But this would not make any impression on the system dynamics, which is still capable of rustling up a lot of rainfall under its footprint mainly over the South Peninsula and adjoining Central Peninsula across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

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Podcast | Weather report: September 15, 2020

Track for onward movement

The low-pressure area is forecast to move west-north-westwards across Telangana during the next two days, the IMD said. It continues to be supported by a shear zone of turbulence in the higher levels of the atmosphere. Over North India, the monsoon trough lies south of its normal position, signalling active monsoon conditions.

The shear zone would persist during the next 2-3 days as well. Combined with the above features, would create fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with isolated heavy falls over Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathawada, Coastal and North Interior Karnataka and Kerala for another next 3-4 days.

Cooling trend in Central Pacific

Isolated heavy to very heavy falls were forecast over Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Marathwada and North Interior Karnataka on Tuesday and over Madhya Maharashtra on Wednesday. The strengthening of lower level is expected to further scale up rainfall over Maharashtra and south Peninsular India from Friday.

Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said that the cooling trend in the Tropical Pacific Ocean continued during the past week. Water temperatures in the Central Pacific Ocean are edging closer to La Nina thresholds, the Bureau said in its latest update on Tuesday.

There is mounting evidence that the atmosphere is responding to the water temperature patterns. A mature La Nina is characterised by both the pattern of sea-surface temperature across the Equatorial Pacific Ocean, and changes in the atmospheric circulation overlying the region.