The monsoon depression in the Arabian Sea will possibly intensify further into a deep depression, which is only a step short of being classified as a tropical cyclone.
Landfall area
Indications are that the storm, the second after cyclone Ashobaa that spun away to Oman earlier this month, could be approaching the Gujarat coast for a landfall. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast sees it crossing the Junagadh region while some others showed it negotiating the Rann of Kutch and heading into southeast Rajasthan.
The Arabian Sea system ramped up in strength on a day a counterpart depression located over east India weakened a round.
Two strong weather systems located to the gateways to the vast plains of north India on either side of the peninsula represented a monsoon peaking in strength.
They have interacted with each other to produce some heavy to very rainfall for east and north-east India, central India and west India. The rains will extend to north-west India during the next few days as the storm in the Arabian Sea washes over land.
Rains for North-West North-west India too may receive heavy to very heavy rainfall since the deep depression is expected to run into a passing western disturbance.
Interaction between a monsoon system and a western system is guaranteed to produce heavy rainfall. This is because confluence of winds kicks up a lot of moisture, which gets cooled in the heights to precipitate as rain.
On Monday, the IMD said that the monsoon has advanced into parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, most parts of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, and Bihar.
The Met has warned fishermen along the coast of Gujarat and north Maharashtra and advised them against venturing out into the sea.
Heavy to very heavy rainfall has been predicted at many places of east, central and west India during the next few days.
Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan in north-west India and Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal would see rains scale up during this period.