South likely to see steady rains from November 1

Vinson Kurian

Overall rainfall activity during the ongoing week (October 25 to 31) would likely be below normal over the South Peninsula on account of the delay in the classical onset of the North-East monsoon.

An extended weather forecast by the India Met Department (IMD), however, said that rainfall would increase during the subsequent week (November 1 to 7), resulting in ‘normal to above normal precipitation.’

Weather anomalies

Apart from super typhoon ‘Yutu’ in the North-West Pacific, issues with the settling in of an anticyclone (high pressure area with clockwise winds) over North India have also interfered with the timely onset of the North-East monsoon.

‘Yutu’ is raging quite some distance away East of the Philippines, accounting for a decent amount of the flows that would normally have been directed into the South China Sea, Gulf of Thailand (Siam) and the Bay of Bengal, in that order.

It is now forecast to move in a largely westerly direction towards the Philippines and could enter the South China Sea by October 30/31, according to global model forecasts.

Meanwhile, some of the easterlies spared by the super-typhoon are shown entering the Bay, but they would be guided to the west-north-west towards the Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Bengal coasts.

This is attributed to the absence of a properly evolved anticyclone over North India whose clockwise winds along the southern flanks are what drive the monsoon easterlies over the Bay of Bengal.

‘Low’ seen straying

It is the malformed anticyclone that would probably cause a low-pressure area to form over the West-Cental and adjoining North-West Bay around Monday to stray and steer the rains to the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts.

The IMD said on Friday that the ‘low’ would bring scattered to fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy rainfall over Coastal Odisha and Gangetic West Bengal early next week.

Isolated to scattered rainfall is forecast over Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, the hills of Bengal and Sikkim on most days of the ongoing week in what resembles a track associated with the erstwhile very severe cyclone ‘Titli.’

The IMD added that isolated rainfall may be witnessed over Tamil Nadu and Kerala until November 1 (Thursday), while the rest of the South Peninsula would receive rains on a few days of the week.

Scattered to fairly widespread rainfall has been forecast over the Andaman & Nicobar Islands during first half of the ongoing week and isolated to scattered in the second half, in association with the formation of the ‘low.’

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