Comments
Cyclone Phethai may have bypassed Tamil Nadu, but model predictions favour some consolation in the form of badly needed rain for parts of the State from the weekend.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has already forecast heavy rain at isolated places for Tamil Nadu and Puducherry on Saturday (December 22) from a circulation brewing in the south-eastern parts of the Bay of Bengal.
Scattered rain may lash Peninsular India from Sunday to Wednesday (December 23 to 25) from a weather disturbance originating in the south-east Bay, the IMD said.
Odd ‘low’ forecast
The Myanmar Department of Meteorology and Hydrology has gone a step ahead in its 10-day outlook issued on December 18 and said that a low-pressure area may form over the Andaman Sea and the adjoining South-Central Bay.
The IMD tends to agree and on Tuesday located a trough of low pressure (not amounting to a low-pressure area as of now) over the South-East Bay of Bengal, adjoining South Andaman Sea, and Equatorial Indian Ocean.
Global models are already watching a cyclonic circulation between Sri Lanka and West Sumatra moving in a north-west direction, which could bring a fresh wet spell to South India during the weekend.
The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) has indicated that the rain would happen mostly over the Tamil Nadu coast during December 17 to 25. Wind field projections of the IMD signal a north-westward movement of the system initially towards Sri Lanka and later the Tamil Nadu coasts with rain for Chennai and neighbourhood from December 21 to 24.
Welcome rains
Later, the rain belt is shown as moving west-north-west and across the south extreme peninsula dropping scattered showers over parts of North Kerala and adjoining Coastal Karnataka.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said that the Chennai-Puducherry-Kaveripattinam-Thanjavur belt in Tamil Nadu and Malappuram-Ernakulam-Thrissur-Alappuzha belt in Kerala may make the most gains.
With cyclone ‘Phethai’ bypassing it, Tamil Nadu has fallen back into a rain deficit, assessed at 21 per cent during the period October 1 to December 18 (Tuesday).
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.