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The first significant burst of rain about a week after the onset of South-West monsoon is about to happen along the West Coast anytime from now.
This comes on the heels of a ‘rogue’ low-pressure area over Northwest Arabian Sea (off Oman coast) dying out after landfall, weather models indicated.
SIGNAL CHANGE
The ‘low’ was generated as part of the monsoon onset phase; it has been appropriating south-westerly flows bound for India’s West Coast even as it waxed and waned in strength off Oman coast.
Two days is all what is now needed to make a signal change in monsoon circulation and strength, said Akhilesh Gupta, expert meteorologist and monsoon watcher.
The stage is well set for the consolidation, which would pull in monsoon flows to cover entire peninsula; Gujarat; South Madhya Pradesh; and parts of East and North-East India, he told Business Line .
“I do not see any threat or disruption to the flows at least over the next eight to 10 days,” he said.
RACE TO NORTH
This period would see the monsoon race to North along the West Coast into Konkan-Mumbai and South Gujarat.
Gupta also saw probability of a ‘monsoon vortex’ popping up off the Konkan coast, the kind of which had set off the infamous Mumbai floods in 2005.
The upshot is not just a strong monsoon phase along the West Coast but also new-found activity in the Bay of Bengal.
The Bay has been languishing for sometime after Cyclone Mahasen churned it over late last month, delaying the onset of monsoon in the north eastern States.
BAYACTIVITY
But activity is building slowly, which would get a boost with the Arabian Sea arm of the monsoon shifting gears.
Akhilesh Gupta hoped that this would help the formation of the all-important seasonal trough along the plains of North India from south-east to north-west (West Rajasthan to Head Bay of Bengal).
Cool monsoon easterlies find their way into the farming heartland of India through this trough formation.
This would hopefully lift heat wave conditions in East, Central and Northwest India.
Just as the offshore trough along West Coast signals ‘active’ Arabian Sea arm of monsoon, so does seasonal trough in the plains with respect to Bay of Bengal arm.
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