Thunderstorm, hail and heat wave, varied offering across regions: IMD

An outgoing feeble western disturbance on Wednesday ‘creamed’ northern parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and contiguous Jammu & Kashmir with some precipitation even as a successor waited its turn from Iran.

The incoming disturbance is expected to bring rain and thundershowers to the hills and plains of North-West India from tomorrow, an India Met Department (IMD) update said.

The rest of the pre-monsoon weather makers — troughs, cyclonic circulations and a ‘wind discontinuity’ — watched out from their strategic locations in those geographies where they are known to frequent during this time of the year.

Weather makers

So, in the North, a trough associated with the incoming western disturbance, and to the East, a cyclonic circulation each over Jharkhand and the hills of Bengal could act in tandem from Thursday to trigger thunderstorms and showers. all across. Some of the resultant weather could get transmitted into a nearby trough extending from North Uttar Pradesh to North Telangana across East Madhya Pradesh and Vidarbha.

This could in turn ‘light up’ a wind discontinuity (a line across which there is abrupt change in wind direction) lying not too far away, linking Rayalaseema with South Tamil Nadu.

Winds, squall, hail

To the South, on Wednesday evening, cyclonic circulations were parked over South Kerala and South Konkan-Goa while a trough lay over Comorin-Maldives topped off by a cyclonic circulation. The IMD has warned of a variety of weather conditions for different regions over the next few days, ranging from thunderstorms, gusty winds, squall and hail even as parts of North-West and East India experience a heat wave.

The proceedings are getting support from an itinerant Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave, a moving belt of ascending air, clouds and heavy rain, along the Equator.

The warm seas in the Equatorial Indian Ocean have chipped in, with satellite pictures showing extensive cloud cover over Sri Lanka, Maldives and South Peninsular India and the adjacent sea area.

‘Low’ watch on

Meanwhile, a familiar weather tracker of the US Climate Prediction Centre has persisted with its outlook for a crucial low-pressure area taking shape in the Bay of Bengal in a week’s time.

The central region of the Equatorial Indian Ocean (South of Sri Lanka) would be the most likely area where the churn would begin next week, before it gains traction and moves into South-West and adjoining East Bay. It is seen developing into a ‘low’ just South-West of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, but may not develop into a full-scale cyclone as disturbances this time of the year are wont to.

Instead, it would lead a wave of rainfall into the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coast in East India, which has not had its share of summer showers till now. But, any untimely movement of a western disturbance could drastically alter this scenario.

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