All set for revival of monsoon as low-pressure area develops in Bay

The weather outlook for the Bay of Bengal has now been upgraded to a low-pressure area (from being just a monsoon circulation), confirming the prospects of revival of the monsoon over the country.

Since July-end, the monsoon had virtually gone into a 'break phase' where the rains were confined to the foothills of the Himalayas, East & North-East India and the East Coast.

'BREAK' PHASE TO END

The 'low,' which the India Met Department (IMD) expects will show up over the next 36 hours, would officially end the 'break' phase, and bring back rain to other parts of the country.

The IMD's hopes are best phrased in this morning's bulletin, wherein it has said the axis of the monsoon trough over North India would start shifting to its original position.

The western end of the trough, which currently straddles across the foothills, where it has been raining heavily, will shift to the normal North-West Rajasthan-Bay of Bengal alignment.

The brewing 'low' would help this transition after it gets anchored over North-West Bay of Bengal, and forces the shift of the other end of the monsoon trough to move south towards its original.

The monsoon is best served by an alignment in which the western end lies over Rajasthan and the eastern end dips in the Bay of Bengal.

HEAVY CLOUD BUILD-UP

The trough allows the orderly progression of the eastern monsoon winds from the Bay of Bengal and associated rain belt to move across Central and North-West India.

Meanwhile, the 'low' is forecast to pop up over North Bay of Bengal, but the eastern end of the displaced trough now ends up a little south-west over the North-West Bay.

Early indications are that the 'low' would slowly move south-west towards the Odisha-North Andhra Pradesh coast and cross the Andhra Pradesh coast, though the actual movement needs to be watched.

The heavy build-up of clouds in the Bay continued overnight, and was concentrated this morning off the coast of North Coastal Andhra Pradesh and South Coastal Tamil Nadu.

Satellite maps showed clouds hanging over Visakhapatnam-Peddipalem-Vizianagaram-Srikakulam into Jeypur-Jagdalpur-Dantewada-Bijapur-Kondagaon-Bijapur across Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

HEAVY RAIN FORECAST

To the South, heavy clouds are located across Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala and adjoining South Tamil Nadu and just off Puducherry and Kumbakonam along the Tamil Nadu coast.

The IMD has for today forecast heavy to very rainfall with isolated extremely heavy rainfall for rain-deficient Telangana; heavy to very heavy rain at a few places over Odisha; heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places over Vidarbha, Chhattisgardh, and coastal Andhra Pradesh; and heavy showers over East Uttar Pradesh, East Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand; and Madhya Maharashtra, Konkan & Goa, Coastal Karnataka, South Interior Karnataka and Lakshadweep in the South Peninsula.

The clouds are heavier still little farther from the coast, towards the East-Central and adjoining Central Bay of Bengal, before they appear to head towards the Andhra Pradesh coast where they converge.

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