India Met Department has extended its outlook for intensification of a well-marked low-pressure area over south-east Bay of Bengal by another day.
The weather system is now expected to become a depression by Wednesday, according to its bulletin.
BEHIND SCHEDULE
The ‘low’ is already two days behind the original schedule set for calibrated intensification, delaying expected landfall over the Tamil Nadu coast.
Consensus projections now favour the system homing in on either on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Intensification into a depression is also mostly factored in, though not the scope for its further evolution.
One factor that works against this is the tapering of sea-surface temperatures on the home stretch.
This is unlike the outer seas where they are in the range of 30 degree Celsius.
PROMOTES CONVECTION
Warmer seas aid the storm building process since they promote convection, or the process of cloud building.
Another factor is that the western half of the ‘low’ (that faces the Tamil Nadu coast) is getting exposed to drier air floating in from land. A third is a band of opposing westerly winds from the Arabian Sea blowing in as part of a western disturbance in northwest India.
The Met Department said that a feeble western disturbance, a low-pressure wave across the border, has already called in over northern parts over Jammu and Kashmir.
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre has given the system a ‘medium chance of significant development.’
RAIN OUTLOOK
Rainfall activity over coastal and south Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu will increase from Friday onwards.
In the North, presence of the western disturbance will translate into rain or snow over Jammu and Kashmir for next two days.
Night temperatures are below normal by 4-6 degree Celsius over Punjab, Haryana, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Saurashtra and Kutch, interior Karnataka and interior Andhra Pradesh.
They are only marginally above over Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat region, West Bengal and Sikkim.
The lowest reading of 6.6 deg Celsius was reported at Adampur in Punjab overnight on Tuesday.