Monsoon unfazed by El Nino threat

The West Coast and North-West plains are poised to witness the return of rains over the next few days despite the signals of monsoon-unfriendly El Nino emanating from the Pacific.

A rain-driving low-pressure area over East Uttar Pradesh and Bihar may be weakening, but a remnant circulation will continue to pour rain over Bihar, Bengal and Sikkim for at least two days more.

Fresh circulation

Additionally, another fresh circulation with prospects of intensification is hovering over the seas off Odisha and Bengal, which is expected to bring even more showers into East and North-East India.

An India Met Department (IMD) update on Thursday evening said that parts of the West Coast, including Konkan, Goa, Coastal Karnataka and Kerala will start receiving rains afresh from Friday.

In fact, the poor precipitation along the West Coast and North-East India was instrumental in making the monsoon performance below par in the otherwise rainiest month.

August is normally the second rainiest, and emerging cues are being monitored in the light of a warming trend in the Pacific, which global models say, has a 50 per cent chance of evolving into an El Nino. Private forecaster Skymet had yesterday warned of a ‘break monsoon’ unfolding in August.

Interestingly, an ensemble model of the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services maintains that the Bay of Bengal will remain active into mid-August. This will mean that rudimentary but rain-generating cyclonic circulations, even low-pressure areas, might continue to keep date with the eastern coast (Odisha and Bengal).

This will help keep the momentum on the monsoon front and sustain the rains over East India, parts of Central India, and along the West Coast, delaying the advent of the ‘break monsoon.’

This is a phenomenon in which rains dry up over most parts of the country except the North-East and parts of the East Coast, and is a normal occurrence.

The heaviest of rainfall over the next five days will be over North-East India, East India and parts of North-West India, says the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

East Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh may be worst affected. The stretch from Konkan and Goa to Coastal Karnataka too may benefit from this spell.

An IMD outlook for Friday said that heavy to very heavy rain is likely over Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Bihar and East Uttar Pradesh.

It will be heavy over Arunachal Pradesh, Bengal, Sikkim, Jharkhand, West Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, East Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Konkan, Goa, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Coastal and South Interior Karnataka.