Close on the heels of an active western disturbance that brought significant weather in the form of long-overdue rains and snow for the western Himalayas and since gone, a follow-up system has started impacting the region.
An India Meteorological Department (IMD) update said on Thursday that the system is endowed with required firepower to hold on and extend influence into the plains of the northwest over the next five days. Satellite imagery showed convective clouds over parts of the western Himalayas.
western disturbance
But the European Centre for Medium-Term Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) seems to suggest this could be only an interregnum before another active western disturbance rolls into the north-west by February 16 (Tuesday).
Forecast charts show a low-pressure area embedded in the westerlies sitting over Afghanistan and adjoining north-west Pakistan two days ahead of this. The eastward bound westerly flows are shown to ferry in the ‘low' to the Pakistan-India border on the north-west in the form of a closed circulation.
The embedded system may lose some of its intensity after likely being made to shed some moisture load over the North West Frontier province and adjoining Punjab in Pakistan. But the ‘closed circulation' structure is more or less shown to be in tact on entering India's north-west, indicating residual moisture carry.
The depth and magnitude, as forecast, might enable the system to mop up moisture from the north Arabian Sea and sprinkle it as scattered to isolated rain over the plains. This is the scenario that the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), too, sees as likely to emerge.
The NCEP outlook for February 11 to 18 is of the view that widespread snowfall and scattered to moderate rains or may occur over the hills and plains of the north-west, propagating in east-southeast direction towards east and east-central India and further into parts of the peninsula.
INTENSITY may rise
An IMD outlook until Sunday spoke about the possibility of isolated rain/snow over western Himalayan region during the next 24 hours, which would increase in intensity thereafter. Isolated to scattered rain or thundershowers would occur over Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.
No significant change is seen in maximum and minimum temperatures over northwest India during the next three days. Isolated to scattered rain or thundershowers would occur over parts of central and east India during the next two days.
Forecast until Tuesday said isolated to scattered light to moderate rain/snow would occur over Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. Isolated to scattered rain or thundershowers are likely over the north-eastern States also.
Parts of southern peninsula would, meanwhile, be brought under showery weather (February 11 to 18) propagating from south of Sri Lanka and across adjoining equatorial Indian Ocean. Satellite pictures on Thursday revealed intense clouding over equatorial Indian Ocean spreading thin over Sri Lanka and southern Indian peninsula.
RAINS FOR SOUTH
The IMD traced a trough of low pressure over the Comorin area extending to adjoining south coastal Tamil Nadu. A cyclonic circulation lay parked over Madhya Maharashtra and neighbourhood.
An outlook by the Regional Meteorology Centre, Chennai, for the next two days said that isolated light rain may occur over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Kerala, Lakshadweep, interior Karnataka, south coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema. This would be the combined result of interaction of the westerlies from the west and north-west of the country with easterlies to northeasterlies from the Bay of Bengal. Sea-surface temperatures were moderately high over coastal Arabian Sea and southwest Bay of Bengal, which would be able to support convection and cloud building. In fact, convective clouds were traced to over the Comorin area on Thursday while low to medium clouds (partly cloudy) hung over central peninsular India.
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