In the best yet scenario forecast for rain-deficient South India, there's an emerging consensus for gains from an expected revival of the monsoon next week.
A lower-level wind field outlook by the India Met Department (IMD) is being endorsed by both the US Climate Prediction Centre and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts.
RAINFALL DISTRIBUTION
Gains accruing for the the South, though later into the season, tends to support the IMD's consistent view that the monsoon rainfall would be well-distributed spatially and temporally for the most part.
The forecast comes at a time when the rain deficit over Karnataka and Kerala has worsened after most of July and the first week of August disappointed farmers in the region.
All three Met subdivisions in Karnataka are in deficit - South Interior Karnataka (-35 per cent); North Interior Karnataka (-20 per cent); and Coastal Karnataka (-21 per cent).
This is on top of a legacy of deficiency for the state as a whole during the last three seasons. Elsewhere, Kerala has a deficit of -27 per cent; Marathawada, -29 per cent; and Vidarbha, -26 per cent.
HEAVY RAIN LIKELY
The expected revival of the monsoon around August 17 is seen bringing rain mostly to these areas, thanks to the prospects of a low-pressure area forming off the Andhra Pradesh coast.
Even otherwise, a helpful trough will remain at large covering the East Coast, extending from the Tamil Nadu coast towards the Odisha coast.
It is in this trough that the 'low' is likely to form. A US tracker charts an ideal west-northwest course for the 'low' to move across the peninsula until August 24.
In this manner, it would pass through Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashta and South Madhya Pradesh before it reaches Mumbai.
The US agency sees heavy rain along coastal Karnataka and Kerala on the South-West Coast and coastal Andhra Pradesh and adjoining North Coastal Tamil Nadu (including Chennai).