Bay ‘low’ may start to intensify from Saturday

The India Met Department (IMD) says the low-pressure area in the making in the Bay of Bengal could start intensifying from as early as Saturday.

The outlook is that the ‘low’ will have been tossed up over the waters between the Andaman Sea and South-East Bay of Bengal just the previous day (Friday).

The hurried pace of the intensification process should largely facilitate its prospective evolution further into a depression, or even a pre-monsoon cyclone, as some models suggest.

Sea-surface temperatures in the area of the buzz are way above the threshold level of 28 degrees Celsius required for intensification of the system.

Satellite maps on Wednesday showed that south-westerly winds have already started converging to the immediate west of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

The IMD has forecast thunderstorms accompanied by gusty winds for Andaman & Nicobar Islands from Thursday.

Heavy to very heavy rainfall will lash the islands for two days from Thursday.

Meanwhile, a sweltering heat wave has engulfed large parts of West and North-West India as dry westerlies fanned into the region from the Arabian desert across Pakistan.

The heat wave will become entrenched and extend to Central India and East India even as the ‘low’ takes hold in the Bay, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts said. The strength of the ‘low’ might be able to hold back the heat wave briefly over East India, but not the sizzle over North Gujarat and adjoining South-West Rajasthan. During the 24 hours ended Wednesday morning, at least six places in the region recorded temperatures beyond 43 degrees Celsius.

The European Centre’s outlook suggested that the ‘top heat’ would cover Rajasthan to Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and the rest of East India. The international border separating West Rajasthan and Pakistan is likely to experience maximum heating.

The heating of West and North-West India causes the air to lift, easing the atmospheric pressure. It is to this vacant space that the monsoon south-westerlies from the Arabian Sea and easterlies from the Bay of Bengal rush in, bringing rains.

The IMD said that over the next two to three days, the maximum temperatures are expected to rise by two to four degrees Celsius over North-West India and by one to two degrees Celsius over East India.