Vigorous monsoon in East slated to continue

The monsoon has been vigorous over sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, east Uttar Pradesh and east Madhya Pradesh during the last 24 hours ending Wednesday morning.

The causative upper air cyclonic circulation over east Uttar Pradesh and neighbourhood persisted, an update from India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.

The rain activity in varying intensity over east and northeast India is slated to continue until October 14 as per forecast update available from the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).

But scattered shower activity over the northwest (except Rajasthan) is likely to continue during the following week as well (October 15 to 23), the NCEP said. This could be attributed to residual moisture lingering in the region after a busy wet session.

The Bay of Bengal is also shown to be in an `expectant situation' during this week presumably from the continuing churn, though weaker than on earlier occasions, in the west Pacific/South China Sea.

An odd rain pulse is forecast to empty its contents over the southeast coast, but, interestingly, scattered showers are also predicted for the west coast and adjoining south peninsula from westerly flows.

While interacting with Business Line on Wednesday, Dr Jing-Jia Luo, Senior Scientist with the Climate Variation Predictability and Applicability Research Programme at the Research Institute for Global Change, Tokyo, mentioned about offices in the metropolis being evacuated in view of approaching Typhoon Melor.

Asked how he could explain the strong typhoon season in the Pacific in the face of an El Nino, he said that he was not sure about El Nino influence on typhoons in the west Pacific.

"Some studies have suggested that El Nino might cause fewer typhoons due to high surface pressure anomaly in the west Pacific. But the number of typhoons does not change year-to-year as much as that in the Atlantic," he said.

WIDESPREAD RAIN

Meanwhile, the IMD has forecast fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over east Uttar Pradesh and Bihar during the next 24 hours.

Fairly widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls is also likely over West Bengal, Sikkim and the Northeastern States during the next two days.

But weather is likely to remain mainly dry over northwest and adjoining central India during the next five days, the IMD said.

Satellite pictures on Wednesday showed convective clouds over parts of southeast Bay of Bengal, south Andaman Sea, north Chhattisgarh, east Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim and Assam.

The three days ending October 12 would see scattered rainfall over the Northeastern States and extreme south peninsular India.

LIGHT IN SOUTH

In the south, isolated rainfall was reported from a few places over coastal Karnataka during the 24 hours ending Wednesday morning, an update from the Chennai Met Centre said.

Isolated rainfall occurred over Tamil Nadu, interior Karnataka, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala. Dry weather prevailed over Rayalaseema and Lakshadweep.

Forecast for the next two days said that rain or thundershowers is likely to occur at a few places over coastal Karnataka, Kerala and north coastal Andhra Pradesh.

Isolated rain or thundershowers have been forecast over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, interior Karnataka, Lakshadweep, south coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Rayalaseema.