Monsoon racing up the West Coast

The monsoon is now racing along the West Coast ahead of time and had by Thursday covered the whole of Coastal Karnataka and Goa, parts of Konkan, and more parts of interior Karnataka.

But it has fallen behind schedule over the South Peninsula, with most of Telangana and Coastal Andhra Pradesh still waiting for rain. The monsoon has lapsed into a customary weak phase over Kerala also.

The northern limit of the monsoon passed through Vengurla, Tumkur and Nellore over the South Peninsula and into Agartala, William Nagar and Kokrajhar in the North-East.

The monsoon is known to advance in pulses, and the next pulse is expected to come about with the formation of an expected low-pressure area over the Bay of Bengal off the Andhra Pradesh coast.

The platform is already set with a preparatory cyclonic circulation each waiting off Coastal Andhra Pradesh and the South Odisha coast as well as over the North Andaman Sea to host it.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts expects the circulations to merge and become a ‘low’ off the Andhra Pradesh coast as early as Friday, and intensify the very next day.

This could be the signal the monsoon needs to put itself on an even keel and run over the rest of the peninsula and start off a punishing spell of showers over the West Coast and adjoining interior peninsula and East India.

The European agency said that the ‘low’ would wash over the Odisha coast and send rain bands into East India and adjoining North-West India during the course of the next week.

It has also forecast the possibility of a follow-up ‘low’ forming over the North Bay of Bengal, close to Kolkata by June 18.

This would once again drive the monsoon to top strength and intensity.

The area south of Coastal Karnataka (mainly Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu) could look forward to some spill-over gains from heavy to very heavy showers likely being unleashed over the West Coast, Central India, and East India during this phase.

This is so because the ‘leading edge’ of the monsoon has left Kerala after the onset phase and would be active elsewhere on the West Coast, especially along the stretch from Coastal Karnataka to Konkan-Mumbai-Gujarat next week.

The India Met Department has not officially mentioned the possibility of the ‘low’ brewing in the Bay, but said that ‘favourable conditions are developing’ for a further advance of monsoon over the next two to three days.

This phase would see the heavy rain belt moving into some more parts of Konkan, interior Karnataka, Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra Pradesh and some parts of Madhya Maharashtra.

Over North-East India, the monsoon should cover the remaining parts of Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya and parts of hills of Bengal as well as Sikkim during this phase.