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Exactly a month after severe cyclone Gaja ravaged the delta districts in Tamil Nadu, another fresh low-pressure area slowly earn its spurs in the neighbourhood seas. This morning, the 'low' is located to the Equatorial Indian Ocean and adjoining central parts of South Bay of Bengal (some distance away from the Sri Lanka and South Tamil Nadu coasts).
India Met Department (IMD) reckons that it would be at least two days before it becomes more 'marked' to signal a round of intensification. The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre has located the system to 781 km east-south-east of Colombo, Sri Lanka, with 'favourable' attributes' for further development.
These include a very warm sea surface with temperatures ranging between 30- and 32 deg Celsius; low vertical wind shear (that helps sustain the storm structure); and good outflow towards the top. The US agency is not however emphatic on its further development, which could take up to three days, with respect to the timing and intensity. But the general track of expected movement is to the north.
The IMD has forecast isolated to scattered rainfall activity over Peninsular India from December 15 to 17 in line with the expected northward travel of the 'low’. Tamil Nadu has had an overall 'normal' North-East monsoon in IMD parlance but a mostly indifferent one in actuality with the temporal and spacial spread of the rainfall leaving much to be desired.
A number of districts have totted up significant rainfall deficits, with Chennai topping with 52 per cent so far during the season (October 1 to December 9). Given the context, the State may be confronted with a make or break situation as the 'low' plots its track for onward movement.
A couple of global models take the system across Sri Lanka and extreme South Peninsula into the Arabian Sea without scope for significant intensification. A couple of others see it going away from the Tamil Nadu coast and heading North while keeping parallel to the coast for a landfall on the Andhra Pradesh/Odisha/Bengal coasts.
But wind field projections put out by the IMD suggests a north-west course for movement for a landfall on the Tamil Nadu coast, though it is too early to take a call.
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