Peninsula set for wet days as ‘low’ develops near Arabian Sea

India Met Department has extended to Saturday the window for genesis of the low-pressure area over the South Andaman Sea.

The time of its birth and track are being closely watched for implications for Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Coastal Andhra Pradesh in less than 10 days after a predecessor wrought havoc along the coast.

Similar set of excessive wet conditions and flooding are expected to revisit the coast as the ‘low’ keeps its West-Northwest track from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The ‘low’ may undergo intensification but is forecast to stop short of crossing the North Tamil Nadu-Coastal Andhra Pradesh coast, according to an assessment of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.

Instead, it would make a turn to the North-Northeast over the waters along the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts towards Gangetic West Bengal.

The Global Forecast System model of the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction tends to agree with this outlook.

But the Canadian Meteorological Centre pointed to a scenario where the ‘low’ breaks up into two with a prominent one heading towards the Chennai-Coastal Andhra Pradesh to cross the coast. The remnant would track into North-Central Bay of Bengal and die out there.

Meanwhile, satellite pictures on Wednesday evening showed a massive blanket of cloud covering the entire South-East Bay of Bengal and South-Central Bay of Bengal.

Advance clouds were seen toying with the coast along Chennai and Nellore and even into Tirupathi. Chennai and Tirupathi remained mostly cloudy while Nellore featured scattered clouds.

India Met Department has warned of heavy to very heavy rain for Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and Coastal Andhra Pradesh coasts variously for three days from Friday up till when forecasts are available.