A surprise low-pressure area forming off Sri Lanka and adjoining South-West Bay of Bengal (a little further away from the South-East coast of Tamil Nadu), could boost the monsoon flows into Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Kerala.

Satellite pictures on Thursday evening showed massive clouds returning to entire Tamil Nadu coast from Nagercoil, Thoothukudi, Ramanathapuram, Nagapattinam, Chidambaram, Cuddalore, Puducherry, and Chennai to Ponneri.

Extended cloud cover Almost entire Sri Lanka too was covered, as were parts of Kerala from Thiruvananthapuram to Kollam, Kochi to Thrissur, and extending into the adjoining plains and foothills of the Western Ghats.

This is even as a compatriot ‘low’ from the Gulf of Thailand bids time to move into the Andaman Sea, which India Met Department (IMD) hopes would happen over the next two days.

It was last located over the Gulf and the adjoining Malay peninsula, but continues to be classified by the Thai Met Department as a depression with sustained wind speeds of 55 km/hr.

Tropical storm ‘Damrey’ that rages to its rear over the South China Sea is evidently exerting its pull on it, delaying its entry into the Andaman Sea.

The ‘low’ over South-West Bay, depression in the Gulf of Thailand and tropical storm ‘Damrey’ in the South China Sea are hot on each other’s trail, making it difficult to hazard a guess on their behaviour.

The US Climate Prediction Centre had put the Bay, the Gulf of Thailand/South China Sea under storm watch, which is more less playing out to the hilt.

There is no consensus though on where they are heading, except in the case of ‘Damrey’, which is widely believed to aim the Vietnam coast for landfall by Saturday.

The depression currently in the Gulf of Thailand and the fresh ‘low’ off Sri Lanka are more or less on their own, judging from the wide disparity in model outlook on their future track. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts believes that they would neutralise each other since no two weather systems sharing the same monsoon flows can possibly grow beyond a point.

It is of the view that the ‘low’ off Sri Lanka would, over the next couple of days, move back and park itself over the Gulf of Mannar where it originally belonged.

This would bring heavy showers to Sri Lanka and the southern parts of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

Meanwhile, the US Climate Prediction Centre has forecast heavy precipitation over southern Kerala and adjoining Tamil Nadu during the ongoing week ending November 7.

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