The clouding over the Bay of Bengal as persisted overnight thanks to a cyclonic circulation in the north Andaman Sea and adjoining east-central Bay of Bengal.
That’s about the only saving grace on the monsoon front, as the seasonal rain system remained frustratingly locked-in across peninsular India for a third morning on Saturday after a delayed onset.
The Bay circulation may intensify as a low-pressure area and move north-northeast towards Myanmar over the next few days but take the rains along with it, too.
Normally, it takes these low-pressure areas to travel west-northwest and cross the southeast coast of the country to bring rains to east and east-central India.
That can happen only when the monsoon system is ‘fully developed’ over the mainland to comply with a horde of essential parameters; not with a truncated system obtaining concurrently.
IMD forecast
India Meteorological Department (IMD) does not expect rains to revive over the peninsula till June 16; but global models are less pessimistic.
They suggest that the build-up for the ‘next pulse’ might start building after the next two to three days to constitute a full-fledged revival of monsoon a couple of days after.
In this context, the Bay of Bengal circulation would be watched with keen interest for implications for the monsoon.