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Weather-setting western disturbances will continue to impact the hills and plains of North-West India right until the end of the month, an extended range forecast by the India Met Department (IMD) has said.
Western disturbance activity has been known to peak in late winter (February). Studies have shown that the strongest (‘active’ or ‘intense’) disturbances are more likely to occur during the winter than other months.
Severity lowered
In fact, the strongest third of these disturbances almost never occur during the monsoon months of July and August, whereas they are almost twice as likely during late winter, a study by the Royal Met Society of London has said.
On Friday, the IMD forecast said that the continued passage of these disturbances will result in precipitation over hills of North-West India and adjoining plains on almost all days into the last week of the month (February 22-28).
The rainfall activity is likely to extend over to adjoining parts of Central India and East and North-East India in line with the eastward track of the disturbances.
On Friday, a prevailing disturbance over North Pakistan and adjoining Jammu and Kashmir has weakened, reducing the severity and spatial extent of weather.
But scattered to fairly widespread rain/thundershowers with isolated hailstorms, gusty winds and lightning are forecast for Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, east Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Bengal and Sikkim.
‘Intense’ system
The respite is short-lived, as yet another ‘intense’ disturbance is expected to check into the Western Himalayan region from Sunday and extend associated severe weather over the plains during Tuesday next to Thursday.
The hills of Western Himalayas might experience widespread rain/snow with isolated heavy to very heavy falls during this period. Adjoining plains, Central and East India would also receive rains due to the passage of this system.
The rainfall activity will later shift eastwards, bringing a regime of scattered to fairly widespread rain/thundershowers, isolated hailstorm/gusty winds and lightning to bear over east Central, East and North-East India from Saturday to Monday.
The extended rage forecast said that movement of easterly waves across the Bay of Bengal may be confined to within the Sri Lankan latitudes during February 22-28, but isolated convective activity may spill over to extreme South Indian peninsula.
Thus, the cumulative rainfall could in all probability be above normal over North-West India, Central India, East and North-East India during the next two weeks and near-normal elsewhere over the country.
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