Cyclone ‘Sagar’ appears to have waded fully into the Gulf of Aden and satellite pictures located it this morning to 175 km East-South-East of the city of Aden in South Yemen.
Despite ensconced within the land features of Yemen in the Arabian Gulf and Somalia and Ethiopia in Africa, ‘Sagar’ has not weakened appreciably and packs some power still.
PACKS PUNCH STILL
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre assessed that ‘Sagar’ would continue to move South-West in the Gulf of Aden and make a landfall over Djibouti later today.
Since ‘Sagar’ has spun out the way from the open Arabian Sea, the strong flows commandeered by it are now heading straight in towards the Sri Lanka coast and Kerala coast in South India.
Embedded rain bands represented an extended area of convection right from Somalia into Sri Lanka-Kerala, marked by thunderstorms and areas of heavy rain.
Passenger and cargo flights heading South-West over the Gulf of Aden were shown particularly avoiding what appeared to be a nasty loner thunderstorm looming to the South of Bosasa airport in Somalia.
CONVERGENCE OFF KERALA
Meanwhile, the south-westerly flows heading from Somalia seem to be converging around the cyclonic circulation over South-East Arabian Sea (between the Kerala coast, Maldives and Lakshadweep).
Thiruvananthapuram has been witnessing showers from last night into this morning with the ambient weather reminding one of typical monsoon conditions.
The rain clouds extend into the rest of the Kerala, North along the coast into Coastal Karnataka and Ratnagiri in Maharashtra, and East into interior peninsular extending into Rayalaseema.
A few global models, including US and European, find the circulation over South-East Arabian Sea building traction and developing into a stronger weather system over the next few days.
But the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction and India Met Department (IMD) differed, suggesting a west-ward track and signalling a powerful cyclone heading into North Yemen/Oman.
THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY
Pre-monsoon thundershower activity continues to be strong over most parts of the country except Gujarat and West Rajasthan, which alone shows large rain deficits since March 1.
The pictorial weather warning issued by IMD today says it all: the mostly 'yellow' or the occasionally 'orange' weather notifications extending to most of the country except the above two.
A prevailing western disturbance and an incoming hold sway over North-West India, an array of circulations, troughs and the odd 'wind discontinuity' lord it over the rest of the country.
The thunderstorm activity would get a further push in the South with flows from the Arabian Sea converging to the West of Kerala from tomorrow.
Initially, South Interior Karnataka, Kerala and Lakshadweep are expected to get impacted before the thunderstorms spread further out.