Japan is watching with bated breath as an intensifying typhoon ‘Ma-On' closes in from the south, barely four months after the island nation was ravaged by a massive quake-drive tsunami.
Currently tracking west over the vast open waters of the north Pacific and already elevated to typhoon (regional nomenclature for a cyclone) status, the rapidly intensifying storm is forecast to take a sharp re-curve towards southern Japan.
WEEKEND LANDFALL
Ma-On could go on to become a super typhoon, global models said. The landfall could take place by the weekend. The southern prefectures of Kagoshima, Nagasaki, Saga, Kumamoto and Miyazaki could be at risk of direct impact.
Far to the west, the evolution of Ma-On has been concurrently driving the monsoon flows over India. Central India and adjoining peninsular regions and west coast are witnessing a strong wet spell.
The ‘tele-connection' (being linked thousands of miles across) in weather becomes complete as the same western disturbance/westerly trough drifting towards north India extends to the far-east to scoop up Ma-On and hurl it over south Japan.
WEATHER WARNING
A weather warning said that isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall would occur over Uttarakhand, Haryana, West Uttar Pradesh, the North-eastern States, Konkan, Goa, coastal and north interior Karnataka, Kerala and Madhya Maharashtra during the next two days.
Isolated heavy rainfall would occur over the Jammu division of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Marathawada, west Madhya Pradesh and east Gujarat on Friday.
Meanwhile on Thursday, the ‘low' over west-central Bay of Bengal washed over land and lay over south Chhattisgarh as a weakened system. The offshore trough was traced running down from Karnataka coast to Kerala coast.
Scattered rain or thundershowers has been forecast over the remaining parts of the country outside west Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Rayalaseema.