Saturday, January 02, 2010

No respite for North-West from biting cold

There has been no respite from the biting cold in parts of the north-west India during the last 24 hours even as forecasts indicated mercury taking a tumble over east India with the dawn of the New Year.

The cold northwesterlies are expected to keep blowing into the plains of the north-west during this period followed by the entry of another feeble western disturbance.

NO CHANGE

India Meteorological Department (IMD) sees the cold wave conditions continuing to hold over isolated pockets of Punjab, Haryana and West Uttar Pradesh ruling out any turn for the better from the passage of the westerly system.

The IMD did not see any large change in the minimum temperatures over the plains of north-west India with clear skies expected to rule the roost. But the prospect of fog/shallow fog has been indicated due to the interaction of moisture and the cold westerlies.

On a cool and calm night, the air near the ground cools rapidly and the cooling gradually spreads upward. Since cool air is denser than warm air, gravity will pull the coolest air down.

In a hilly area, the cool air settles into the valleys and, therefore, fog forms in the valleys while hilltops may be clear.

Minimum temperatures were below normal by 2 to 4 deg Celsius over Jammu and Kashmir, parts of Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh through Wednesday.

But they were above normal over parts of east and south India thanks to moisture of stray moisture and associated cloudiness.

COLD WAVE

Cold wave conditions continued to prevail over isolated pockets of Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh. Amritsar recorded the lowest temperature of -6 deg Celsius on Wednesday.

The Chennai Met Centre said in an update that isolated rainfall was reported from a few places over Lakshadweep, Telangana and south interior Karnataka.

Forecast for the next two days said that rain or thundershowers are likely at a few places over Lakshadweep.

Isolated rain or thundershowers have been forecast also over north coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala and Karnataka.

On Thursday, a trough from Lakshadweep was traced to until south interior Karnataka. Towards the north, a trough/wind discontinuity ran down in a south-southwest direction from Uttar Pradesh to Goa.

IMD forecast until Tuesday (January 5) suggested the possibility of isolated rainfall over extreme south peninsular India.

CYCLONIC WHIRL

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting (ECMWF) said that the ‘low' forecast earlier over south-west Bay of Bengal may fail to organise to that level.

Instead, it saw a cyclonic circulation patrolling the waters around south-east Tamil Nadu coast and adjoining Sri Lanka around January 8 and dissipating sooner than expected.

But, the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) saw the weather system tracking to the north along the east coast aiming to reach the Orissa coast during January 7 to 15.

Coastal Tamil Nadu and the rest of the east coast stretching up to the West Bengal coast and beyond are expected to come under a wet spell presumably under the influence of westerly flows, the NCEP indicated.

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