A nowcast issued by the Thiruvananthapuram Met Office has said thunderstorms accompanied by gusty winds would affect Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts in the South. The state capital has received a continuous drizzle since morning and conditions are overcast.
Satellite pictures this morning show rain clouds rolled up into a soft cushion along the West Coast, and extending from Kanyakumari to Mumbai across Kerala, coastal Karnataka, Goa and Konkan.
MONSOON RESET ON
This comes in the context of forecasts for a fresh reset in monsoon conditions, likely signalling the end of the lull they had lapsed into, two weeks since onset. The truncated offshore trough along the North Kerala-Karnataka coasts had ensured continued rainfall for those areas, even while there was a lull in monsoon activity elsewhere.
But the revival phase does not promise to be as spectacular as the original onset phase, principally due to lack of a low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal. The India Met Department (IMD) does not indicate the formation of any such feature in the near future, with the reviving monsoon left to the command of tropical storm Gaemi in the North-West Pacific.
The monsoon flows cross the Kerala coast into the South Indian Peninsula, Bay of Bengal and Myanmar/ Bangladesh before feeding into Gaemi.
HEAVY RAIN SEEN
The IMD has forecast heavy to very heavy rain for Kerala, Karnataka, Konkan and Goa, coastal, North Interior and South Interior Karnataka, Madhya Maharashtra and parts of the North-Eastern states until June 20.
The rains are expected to become broad-based thereafter over the interior of South Peninsula, with or without the formation of a low-pressure in the Bay. A warning valid until tomorrow noon said heavy (7-11 cm in 24 hours) to very heavy (12-20 cm) rainfall is most likely to occur at one or two places in Kerala today and on Tuesday next (June 19).
Heavy rainfall is most likely to occur at one or two places tomorrow and on Monday. Strong westerly winds with speeds reaching up to 35-to-45 kmph is likely along and off the Karnataka, Kerala coasts and over Lakshadweep.
The sea condition is likely to be 'rough' over these regions. High waves are likely off the Karnataka coast and Lakshadweep. Fishermen are advised not to venture into sea.
WATCH FOR 'LOW'
High waves are also likely along the Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Goa coasts. The sea condition is likely to be 'rough' to 'very rough', and fishermen have been advised not to venture out into sea.
The IMD has ruled out a monsoon depression taking shape in the Bay anytime soon, but doesn't significantly seem to rule out a rudimentary low, as a US agency continues to suggest.
The US National Centres for Environmental Prediction persists with the projection of a circulation, not well-endowed though, along the Odisha-Bengal coast and heading leisurely inland.
Its forecast takes the system as far interior into the West as Madhya Pradesh, after which it might lose traction due to its inherent lack of strength and vitality.
It remains to be seen what an incoming Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave, normally a monsoon booster, can do to the system as a whole during the intervening period.
Meanwhile, pre-monsoon dust storms and thunderstorms accompanied by lightning are forecast to hold centrestage over the plains of North-West India during this period.