Monsoon may emerge net gainer from Pacific storm ‘Rammasun’

The Indian monsoon is staring at new-born Pacific storm named ‘Rammasun’ in the northwest Pacific but forecasts suggest it might just manage to emerge a net gainer.

This would mean that the monsoon would fight out the initial setback from draining of moisture by Rammasun and prevail, though not necessarily as an outright winner.

Westward track

The westward track of tropical storm Rammasun, unlike the east-northeast track of predecessor super typhoon Neoguri, would take it into South China Sea, closer to the Indian subcontinent.

Neoguri had looked the other way as it strayed north-northeast to race towards southern Japan, taking away a bulk of monsoon moisture with it.

While drawing moisture to fuel its intensification, Rammasun would later give it back to the monsoon in the form of a ‘pulse’ lobbed across Vietnam-Laos-Thailand-Myanmar into the Bay of Bengal.

This pulse might set up another low-pressure area in the Bay and spark another round of rainfall over east and northwest India until July 25.

Current spell

Significantly, this would come on the back of a monsoon surge that is currently underway, bringing heavy to very heavy rainfall over central India, the west coast, parts of the peninsula and sooner over northwest India.

Parched Gujarat, especially its southern and eastern parts, would also benefit from the current session. Rajasthan would likely be the sole loser, though it might go on to record some gain from the next.

Though the west coast is forecast to make exceptional rain, the same cannot be said about the rest of the peninsular India where the rains would range from the moderate to the indifferent.

On Sunday, it appeared as if the current wet spell was being dictated not so much by the ‘low’ in the Bay as tropical storm Rammasun in the northwest Pacific.

Rain for Gujarat

A large chunk of the moisture is already being funnelled out into Pacific storm which would cause the ‘low’ here to weaken slightly and even break up as it enters central India.

A remnant would drift north towards Uttar Pradesh and trigger heavy rain there; the parent would close in on Mumbai-Konkan-Gujarat and sustain the heavy spell on the west coast.

Surat-Vadodara-Ahmedabad-Gandhinagar belt in Gujarat will be subjected to heavy rain in the bargain.

The causative trough would sign off from northwest Gujarat before slipping into the northeast Arabian Sea, bringing badly needed rain over Dwarka-Jamnagar-Bhuj region.

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