A fresh surge of monsoon flows could wallop East and North-East India, dumping intense rainfall over the region in the run-up to the formation of a fresh low-pressure area in the North Bay of Bengal by the weekend.

The India Met Department (IMD) has forecast widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy and extremely heavy falls over the hills of Bengal, Sikkim, Assam and Meghalaya during the next two-three days.

It would be widespread with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura during this period.

Satellite pictures on Tuesday showed flows along the Mangaluru-Mumbai stretch crossing the peninsula to enter the South-West Bay to combine with incremental flows from there and blowing into the East and North-East via the South-East Bay and Myanmar coast.

These flows are expected to close in further to form a completed ‘loop’ over the North Bay, the IMD said, but the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Services pointed to a spot closer to the Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh coast.

The ‘low’ being generated here would take its own time to cross the coast, before delving into East India and adjoining Central India, generating a good amount of rainfall along the way.

Depression watch

Wind-field projections suggested that the system could intensify into a depression over land and revive the fortunes of the monsoon yet again over Central India and parts of North-West India in the first week of July.

The IMD has warned of strong winds and rough seas over the South-West and West-Central Arabian Sea until Saturday and over East-Central Bay and the adjoining Andaman Sea on Friday and Saturday.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, delayed by almost a fortnight, the monsoon marched into South Gujarat and Mumbai in an overnight push from Alibag, a major ‘waypoint’ on its track on the West Coast.

Reach widening

Its northern limit linked Veraval in Gujarat and extended into the East and North-West, connecting Surat, Indore, Mandla, Pendra, Sultanpur, Lakhimpur Kheri and Mukteshwar

It cuts through the States of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, representing an impressive South-West to North-West arc but delayed variously by a week to a fortnight.

Interestingly, the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Service has signalled the likely formation of storms not just in the Bay but also to the East of the Philippines during the week.

These systems may lie some distance apart but are expected to have some bearing on the progress of the monsoon since they both thrive on moisture sourced from the same flows.

‘Conditions more supportive’

But the developing system in the Bay is shown as intensifying faster than the one in the Philippine seas, giving it an early bird’s advantage with respect to substantial access to monsoon flows.

The latter is shown tracking towards Hanoi (Vietnam) in the North-West, rather than to the East-North-East and the Northern Pacific, which would have not been ideal for the monsoon here.

The US agency said there is ‘moderate’ confidence in storm formation in the Bay. One model shows enhanced rainfall over the region even without an intense ‘low,’ while others insist on a depression taking shape here.

Persistent easterlies that delayed the monsoon have been replaced with friendly, though weak westerly winds. Conditions are looking more supportive of the monsoon for South India while still being delayed over Central and North India, it added.

The Climate Forecast System indicated continued below normal rainfall for North India until July 2 while the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts indicates near-normal rain.

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