A fresh series of western disturbances is expected to influence the weather not just over North and East India, but also over other parts of the country in the coming days. The first one should be seen in action from Monday, a day after Republic Day. This system may cause fairly widespread to widespread rain/snow over the hills of North-West India on Tuesday and Wednesday (January 28 and 29) with isolated heavy falls; and scattered to fairly widespread rain/thunderstorm over the plains during the same period.

Scattered to fairly widespread rain/thunderstorms are forecast over Uttar Pradesh from Tuesday and over Bihar and the adjoining East from Wednesday. In its outlook for next Tuesday, the US Navy Global Environmental model saw rain/thundershowers breaking out over the western parts of Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and adjoining Nepal, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, West Uttar Pradesh, East Madhya Pradesh and adjoining Bihar, parts of Odisha and even Tamil Nadu.

Rains for parts of Tamil Nadu next week?

The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction agreed with the outlook, and went on to forecast more thundershowers for most of Tamil Nadu and adjoining Central and South Kerala from January 31 to February 8.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts indicated that the second, moderately strong western disturbance will set up a perch over Iran by January 30 (Thursday). It will then cross over into Afghanistan and Pakistan before reaching North-West India by February 1, even as a third successive disturbance sets itself into motion in the rear, pulling into Iran by February 2 (Sunday). The system is, however, forecast to weaken a bit as it checks into Iraq the very next day.

It is during the pendency of these disturbances over North-West India and East India, that the US agency cited above sees rains breaking out over Tamil Nadu and Kerala, suggesting the possibility of associated westerlies dipping into the South and interacting with the north-easterlies/easterlies from the Bay of Bengal.

Leading Chennai-based blogger @ChennaiRains gave out a likely snapshot as follows:

Mercury to fall in North from Sunday

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said this morning that a resident western disturbance, observed over North Pakistan and adjoining Jammu & Kashmir yesterday, in the morning, has moved away from the country to the East-North-East. The incoming active western disturbance waited its turn over East Iran along a latitude that connects Herat and Kabul in Afghanistan, and to the North of Char Bagh in Pakistan, and Leh in India. Given this, the IMD did not find scope for any significant change in maximum and minimum temperatures over North, Central, East and West India until tomorrow (Saturday) and a gradual fall in night temperatures (under a clear sky) by 2-4 degrees Celsius during the subsequent two to three days (Sunday to Tuesday).

Strong surface winds (of speeds ranging from 20-25 km/hr, and therefore no fog) may prevail over the plains of North India, causing mainly dry weather on Republic Day (Sunday), except over Jammu & Kashmir, where isolated to scattered precipitation is expected. Shallow to moderate fog is likely over East India in the morning hours during the next three to four days.

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Peninsular India turning hotter

Maximum temperatures were appreciably above normal (by 3.1 degrees Celsius to 5 degrees Celsius) at most places over Konkan & Goa, at many places over Kerala, a few places over Coastal Karnataka and at isolated places over Saurashtra & Kutch. They were above normal (1.6 degrees Celsius to 3.0 degrees Celsius) at a few places over Tamilnadu, Puducherry, Rayalaseema, Chhattisgarh and Lakshadweep in signs that these regions may have started to heat up ahead of spring.

 

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Clear sky above the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru, on Friday. - Photo: GRN Somashekar

 

 

Forecasts by global agencies have indicated that Peninsular India is likely to experience a warmer summer this year. Yesterday (Thursday), the highest day temperature of 37.6 degrees Celsius was recorded at Karwar (Coastal Karnataka) while the lowest night temperature of 4.2 degrees Celsius was recorded in Amritsar (Punjab) over the plains of the country.

At 10 am this morning, among the metros, New Delhi was the coolest at 10.2 degrees Celsius and Chennai the warmest at 24.2 degrees Celsius. Mumbai was sunny at 28 degrees Celsius under smoke and haze and to the East, Kolkata was at 19 degrees Celsius.

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Kolkata woke up to a sunny morning. Photo: Debasish Bhaduri

 

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