Two low-pressure areas looking eye to eye from both sides of an imaginary border separating West and Central India will sustain strong monsoon conditions today.

Both are feeding into each other to maintain the status quo ante; normally, one blinks the eye in such a scenario, giving the other the right to dictate weather.

'FUEL LINES' OPEN

But no such quarters are either sought or given here, since each is able to draw in moisture from the seas closest - the Arabian Sea to the West and the Bay of Bengal to the East.

The 'low' that gains from the fuel lines traced to the Bay of Bengal is situated over North Madhya Pradesh this morning. This was a full-fledged monsoon depression to begin with.

The counterpart 'low' is of recent origin, spinning up over Gujarat as an aftermath of enhanced flows that the depression had triggered from the Arabian Sea as well.

This 'low' has since been pushed west over Kutch, where it has been traced this morning.

COMBINED STRENGTH

The two systems have combined to put extreme North India, the entire western half of the country, Central India, and extreme South India under a weather alert today.

The situation might ease once the 'low' over Kutch weakens and signs out, though the other one will continue to loiter over Rajasthan and adjoining North-West India.

The respite might not last long since there are signs that another low-pressure might be shaping up over North Bay of Bengal over the next four or five days.

This too is expected to take a belt of heavy rain from East to Central India and to the West along a track made familiar by two predecessors.

Parts of the North and North-West and Peninsular India are also expected to make gains as the wet spell sustains variously into practically the whole of the next week, forecasts suggest.