Buzz over the Bay of Bengal has achieved an expected closure with the formation of a low-pressure area over the east-central waters on Tuesday.
An India Met Department forecast said that the system will move to the north in the basin by Wednesday. Seawaters are warm to very warm along the western coast of Myanmar that abuts the basin.
The warmth grows to 31-32 degrees Celsius along the Myanmar coast building storms sniff out most warm waters in the vicinity to move laterally attracted by enhanced evaporation and cloud-building processes.
In the current context, though, the ‘low’ may not have the window to grow much in size since it would not be able to stay over for waters long enough.
Proximity to Gangetic West Bengal coast to the north and Myanmar to the north-east shuts out the possibility; but the very warm waters off Myanmar may give it extended life.
Landfall point Most models take it towards the Myanmar coast guided by opposing winds from a prevailing western disturbance crossing into Jammu and Kashmir, and followed by another. The monsoon is holding on reasonably well in the east Bay of Bengal and the Met Department saw possibilities for its further advance to the rest of the basin over the next couple of days.
US National Centres for Environmental Prediction has not entirely ruled out formation of minimal storm in the Bay of Bengal basin either this week or the next. Under its influence, it sees activity spilling over into the south-east Arabian Sea off the Kerala coast likely precipitating the monsoon-like rains even ahead of the June-1 normal.
Drift in sea But there is also the danger that the causative low-pressure area drifting to west-northwest into central Arabian Sea, away from the Kerala coast.
What this could mean is that the rains over the mainland would peter out in tandem, and would need another fresh monsoon surge to revive them.