Lull phase of monsoon likely to extend into next week

The monsoon remained stuck along an arc emerging out of south Gujarat into north-east Madhya Pradesh and further into east Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.

Model outlooks suggest no major improvement on the monsoon front in either North-West or adjoining West India (mainly Gujarat and west Madhya Pradesh).

Fresh cloud developing in East-central and adjoining north Bay of Bengal into which a trough emerging from Bihar dips remains the only meteorological feature of some relevance to its further progress.

The development has sustained overnight from Monday and featured fresh bands converging into from South-West and adjoining Bay of Bengal.

Land-based trough dipping into the Bay of Bengal during this time of the year has always been looked at with great interest and subjected to close monitoring by monsoon watchers.

The formation sets up a direct pipeline for clouds and moisture to enter the trough and further into land aided by incoming south-easterly winds from the Bay.

If sustained over days together, this formation can lead to the initiation of a helpful cyclonic circulation/low-pressure area over the basin.

This is exactly what the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather forecast says will happen in due course over the Head Bay of Bengal.

The European Centre sees a low-pressure area springing up over the Head Bay by July 3 or 4, which is more than a week away from now.

This is expected to have beneficial impact on the monsoon, though there is no precise knowledge of the extent or scale of the revival in its fortunes.

Till such time, the monsoon system is forecast to continue in a lull phase. But thundershowers may punctuate the air in North-West and East India as also parts of the peninsular coasts.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology indicated more or less in its latest update saying that tropical convection (process of cloud building) has left the Indian Ocean.

The convection, guided by a periodic Madden-Julian Oscillation wave high up in the atmosphere, had entered the South China Sea/North-West Pacific.

It will prime up this ocean base just next to the Bay of Bengal for cyclone/typhoon activity, the Bureau said. East-bound storms from here can impact the monsoon in just the manner in which Cyclone Nanauk in the Arabian Sea had undermined its onset phase earlier this month.