Satellite maps this morning showed that the intense cloud banks across the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal have broken up signalling a recess in the monsoon activity.

A high-pressure area (anti-cyclone, that repels monsoon flows) was in the making in the North Arabian Sea, while a cyclonic circulation was brewing to its South, which too hinders the monsoon flows.

'Low' likely in Bay

The atolls of Maldives, which have been witnessing heavy rain and high winds over the past couple of days, are now witnessing windy to cloudy to partly cloudy conditions.

But the Sri Lankan Met Department has continued to forecast showery weather accompanied by high winds of up to 50 km/hr over land and up to 70 km/hr in the seas to its South-West.

In the Bay of Bengal, a low-pressure area is being forecast to form by May 22/23 just to the west of Andaman & Nicobar Islands. This is expected to 'switch on' the monsoon back again.

India Meteorological Department (IMD) projects that the system may move towards the Chennai and South Coastal Andhra Pradesh coast.

Rain in Bay Islands

Ultimately, this would be the system that would help drag in the monsoon over Kerala in the last week of the month.

The IMD has already forecast that the Andaman & Nicobar Islands would slip under the cover of heavy rain yet again from May 22.

Global models too have been hinting at the formation of a monsoon 'low'/depression in the Bay next week, which the IMD's own projections would now appear to corroborate.

Meanwhile, the thundershower regime in the North-West, East, North-East and the South of the country is forecast to continue for the next two to three days.

Heat wave conditions have been driven away from the North-West to Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Rayalaseema, Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, and interior Odisha.

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