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The monsoon broke through a recess on the West Coast to advance into more parts of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh during the 24 hours ending Friday morning.
The southern part of the coast was devoid of rain clouds over the past couple of days. The northern limit of the monsoon passed through Dwarka, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Jabalpur, Pendra, Sultanpur, Lakhimpur Kheri and Mukteshwar on Friday.
‘Low’ by Sunday
Its onward journey would renew urgency with the formation of a low-pressure area in the North Bay of Bengal (around June 30) and its subsequent intensification into a depression, a possibility BusinessLine had mentioned at least a week ago. The India Met Department (IMD) on Friday said the ‘low’ may intensify into a depression by July 2 (Tuesday), and may move westward into Central and adjoining West India in due course.
This is expected to drag the monsoon along, covering the remaining parts of Central India and some more parts of West and North-West India from Monday to Wednesday, in an overall delay of at least one fortnight.
The IMD has warned that widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy and extremely heavy falls may lash Odisha, South Chhattisgarh, Vidarbha and adjoining districts of Telangana on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Meanwhile, on Friday it traced out a preliminary cyclonic circulation over the West-Central Bay off the North Andhra Pradesh-South Odisha coasts. This is expected to descend to set up the ‘low’ by Sunday and deepen into a depression by Tuesday.
The run-up to the initiation of the ‘low’ has already seen rampaging monsoon flows dump heavy rainfall to very heavy rainfall over Assam, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Coastal Karnataka, Vidarbha, and the hills of Bengal.
The stations recording significant rainfall (in cm) during the 24 hours ending Friday morning were: Mawsynram-32 and Cherrapunji-30 (both Meghalaya); Mahabaleshwar-18; Ratnagiri-12; Matheran, Harnai-11 (all Maharashtra); Karwar-9 (Karnataka); Pune and Dahanu-7 each (maharashtra); Shillong-6 (Meghalaya); Majbat and North Lakhimpur (Assam) and Pasighat (Arunachal Pradesh)-5 each.
Fresh ‘low” likely
An extended forecast valid for July 3-5 said that widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is likely over North Maharashtra, South Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat region (Wednesday) and over Gujarat (Thursday).
Widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls is also likely along the West Coast. Scattered to fairly widespread rainfall likely over the rest of the country outside the East Coast, where rainfall is likely to be at isolated places.
Meanwhile, the Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Service has maintained a watch for a follow-up low-pressure area to form in the North Bay of Bengal during the early part of the second week of July.
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