Comments
The northern limit of monsoon remained stuck across the Colombo latitude for the third day on Friday.
The day also saw the evening bulletin of India Meteorological Department (IMD) withdraw the customary outlook on monsoon progress towards Kerala coast.
IMD merely said that rains are expected to escalate along the west coast from June 5, which is in line with global model forecasts.
The onset is thus likely to be delayed into early or mid-next week with a rogue cyclonic circulation in the west Arabian Sea disrupting the flows.
The circulation has turned winds approaching the Kerala coast to being west-northwesterly, which doesn't help the cause of onset of rains.
The flows would have to be decidedly westerly-to-southwesterly to be able to push clouding and moisture into the last mile. Thiruvananthapuram, the gateway for the system into the mainland, witnessed sunny and breezy weather on Friday.
But humidity levels had gone up slightly, compared to the previous day.
Meanwhile, the Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) of the US National Weather Services has put a tentative watch for tropical cyclone formation in the Arabian Sea. It picked on the very system that is now disrupting the monsoon flows in the west-central Arabian Sea to intensify to at least to depression strength.
Ironically, this system is seen as heralding the onset of rains along the west coast, if CPC projections are anything to go by. In its latest update, the CPC said that the Indian monsoon “appears somewhat delayed this year.” This brought about drier-than average conditions for the southern Indian subcontinent during this week, it added.
The CPC expected the monsoon to be “in full flow” during the week beginning June 6, signalling the onset and propagation of the seasonal rains.
Southeast Arabian Sea, south peninsular India and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal are all expected to witness above normal rainfall for the week.
On Friday, sea-surface temperatures over the Arabian Sea averaged 30 deg Celsius and above, which is more than sufficient to host strong weather systems. Pre-onset conditions over the sea favour the formation of such weather systems due to favourable wind flow pattern in the upper levels.
Towards the north of the country, heat wave to severe heat wave conditions prevailed over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and parts of east and east-central India.
Comments
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.