Vinson Kurian

Another round of flooding rain likely from weekend

Thiruvananthapuram June 25 The well-marked remnant of Tropical Storm `03B' is stirring up the warm waters of the Arabian Sea to intensify as a depression once again but the predicted track to West-Northwest renders it increasingly irrelevant for mainland India weather.

It will still be able to kick up some rain over Konkan, Goa, Gujarat and parts of Rajasthan, and has managed to drag monsoon into entire Gujarat, Vidarbha, Orissa, Jharkhand and even parts of south-east Rajasthan, south Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Indications are that another round of flooding rain would begin from the weekend as a remnant of `03B' sets up a fresh `low' in the Bay of Bengal off the Orissa coast. India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects it to materialise by Tuesday itself, before it deepens into a depression.

Generous July?

According to monsoon watchers, the basic monsoon current continues to be very strong, throwing up rain-bearing monsoon low's almost at will. Indications are that this trend will carry well into July, the crucial month for rainfall that decides which way the kharif crops are headed.

Sowing of summer crops such as rice, cotton, soybean and peanuts has already got a major boost with the first round of rainfall from `03B.' Most of these areas are bracing for a second round of wetting as the Bay `low' gathers momentum and crosses the Orissa coast.

As of June 20, all-India rain deficit was just two per cent, but it is likely that even this would have been mostly covered from the incessant rain during the just-concluded weekend. The deficit areas were Saurashtra (-39 per cent), Jharkhand (-47 per cent), Gujarat (-69 per cent), and East Rajasthan (-69 per cent).

Among the surprising beneficiaries of excess rainfall during the period were Punjab (+102 per cent), Haryana (+166 per cent), West Uttar Pradesh (+74 per cent), and West Madhya Pradesh (+26 per cent) where monsoon is yet to arrive. Western disturbances have been responsible for bringing non-seasonal rainfall to these regions.

On Monday, the Northern limit of monsoon passed through Deesa, Idar, Hoshangabad, Pendra, Ambikapur, Varanasi, Sultanpur, Bahraich and Mukteshwar.

The passing of `03B' will bring about convergence of strong monsoon flows back to the peninsular seas, helping propel the brewing `low' in the North-West Bay.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) sees the flows from the Arabian Sea beginning to sweep the peninsula once again to mass around the Bay `low'. Broadening of the sweep from Friday will prompt stronger flows and bring even the Southern peninsula under rain cover.

Pounding rains

The system is shown as spinning away to become a tropical storm and crossing the Orissa coast by the weekend. A predicted West-Northwest course will take the system heading into Mumbai/South Gujarat, threatening to bring pounding rain to this region.

An IMD update on Monday said preparatory widespread rainfall with isolated heavy falls is likely over Orissa during the next two days. The rainfall activity is likely to enhance further and extend into adjoining North Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha and Madhya Pradesh.

Significantly, the ECMWF indicates that this system, too, is likely leave behind a remnant in the West-Central and adjoining North-West Bay, which would start wrapping the unrelenting monsoon flows around itself to grow as another low-pressure area in the Head Bay by July 3.

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