Satellite maps from early this morning has been showing an influx of rain clouds into the interior of South Peninsula from the Bay of Bengal across the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coasts.

The clouding had grown along an elongated swathe bounded by Kalipatnam, Bhimavaram, Eluru, Khammam, Karimnagar, Adilabad, Wardha, Nagpur, Balaghat, Mungeli, Mahasamund, Bhawanipatna, Rayagada, and the Eastern Ghats in South Odisha.

Aircraft fly around

This represented a corridor covering Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha, as represented at 4.30 am this morning.

Moderate to intense convection (cloud-building and thunderstorms) was noticed over South-West Bay and the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha as well as adjoining interior.

Remnants of these convections forced a number of domestic and international flights to either duck or fly around them as they operated over the region later in the morning.

Among these were British Airways flights in the London-Singapore and London-Kuala Lumpur sector; Kenya Airways (Nairobi-Bangkok); and Lufthansa (Frankfurt-Singapore) which steered clear of a towering thunderstorm off Visakhapatnam.

Convective areas spotted over land included the one that stretched from near Nanded airport to Malewada Forest Range in the North-East (both Maharashtra) to Indravati National Park to the South-East (Chhattisgarh) and Mancherial/Ramagundam in the South (Andhra Pradesh).

Land-based convection

Another area of convection over land lay extended from Aurangabad to Buldana and Akola in Maharashtra to Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh.

To the West, convective clouds were spotted in clusters off Panaji (Goa)-Murdeshwar (Coastal Karnataka); Udupi-Mangaluru (Coastal Karnataka); and a large area covering Kannur (Kerala)-Bandipur Tiger Reserve and National Park (Karnataka); Coonoor (Tamil Nadu); and Kozhikode (Kerala).

A less intense area of convection was located off the Kochi-Alappuzha stretch in Kerala.

The Thiruvananthapuram Met Office has warned off strong winds from a westerly direction with speeds reaching 45 km/hr and gusting to 55 km/hr along and off the Kerala coast and over Lakshadweep area.

The sea condition is likely to be 'moderate' to rough off Kerala-Karnataka coasts and over Lakshadweep area. High waves in the range of 3.0 to 3.6 meter (over Lakshadweep area) and 3.0 to 3.5 meter (over Kerala coast) are also likely.

Fishermen have been advised not to venture into sea along and off Kerala coast and over Lakshadweep area for today. This meant that the revival phase of the monsoon is very much on, with India Met Department (IMD) signalling that it would become more organised from Sunday.

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