Very severe cyclonic storm ‘Tauktae’ will approach the West Coast of Gujarat by Monday evening and make landfall between Porbandar and Mahuva (Bhavnagar district) around Tuesday morning. On Sunday afternoon, the massive storm with a suitably well-developed ‘eye’ lurked off the Panjim-Goa coast.

This location was 380 km to South-South-West of Mumbai; 620 km South-South-East of Veraval (Gujarat); and 790 km South-East of Karachi (Pakistan). India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects the system to further intensify during the entire day on Monday over the expanse of the open Arabian Sea waters.

Successors may be on the cards

Meanwhile, indications are that the very severe cyclone ‘Tauktae’ may have been a harbinger of things to come ahead of the formal monsoon onset, with both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal waiting to mint fresh storms to be rolled out one after the other. Better model consensus is awaited concerning this probability.

An extended outlook by the IMD from May 21 to 23 said, however, that fairly widespread to widespread rainfall and thunderstorms with isolated heavy falls may break out over the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, while it will be fairly widespread to widespread over North-East India, South-West Peninsula (Kerala) and Lakshadweep.

South Peninsula pounded

During the 24 hours ending Sunday morning, ‘Tauktae’ dumped heavy to very heavy to extremely heavy falls over Coastal Karnataka and Kerala, Mahe, North and South Interior Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal, Konkan and Goa on the West Coast.

Stations recording rainfall (above 10 cm) are: Udupi and Mahe-24 each; Vadakara-23; Waynad-21; Dakshin Kannada and Shivamoga-19 each; Kodagu-18; Coimbatore and Kannur-17 each; Uttara Kannada-16; Nilgiris-15; Ernakulam-14; Chikamagaluru and Kochi-13 each; Cannur-12; Mandya, Thrissur, Bajpe and Shirali-11 each; and Kasaragod, Malappuram, Idukki, Thiruvananthapuram, Valparai, Karipur, Mangaluru, Honavar and Karwar-10 each.

Forecast for Konkan, Gujarat

Outlook for Monday said that heavy to very heavy falls are likely over South Konkan and Goa and adjoining Ghat areas and moderate, heavy to very heavy falls over North Konkan. As for Gujarat, heavy to very heavy falls are likely over Saurashtra and Kutch, Diu and the southern parts of the state.

Light to moderate rainfall is likely at many places over Rajasthan with heavy to very heavy falls and extremely heavy falls at isolated places South Rajasthan on Tuesday and heavy to very heavy falls at isolated places in the rest of the desert state on Wednesday.

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