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A third strong and active western disturbance is waiting to enter North-West India, and may perpetuate an uninterrupted run of rain, snow, thunderstorms, lightning, hail and high winds over the region and across the adjoining East and Central India as well.
Active western disturbances may take a break after this, and international models projected that the next big one may reach Turkey, Syria and Jordan by March 20. It would take four to five days for it to cross Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan before entering North-West India. In between, comparably weaker disturbances may chug their way into North-West India.
Offspring circulation soon
Meanwhile, on Tuesday morning, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) traced out the latest disturbance to over Afghanistan, which has induced the formation of an offspring circulation over South-West Rajasthan. Rajasthan/Haryana is a familiar region in North-West India — the other being Central/North Pakistan — for active western disturbances to lob in their offsprings, and force their influence on local weather ahead of the parent disturbance.
International weather models suspected that the offspring cyclonic circulation could intensify into a low-pressure area, just was the case with the previous western disturbance. The IMD indicated that the circulation may mop up oodles of moisture from the Arabian Sea for three days from Tuesday, providing it enough fuel to sustain itself or intensify in strength.
Interaction with easterlies
Additionally, opposing moisture-laden easterly winds from the Bay of Bengal are expected to fan into North-West and adjoining Central India, creating an area of violent interaction, and setting off rain, thunderstorms, lightning and hail. The IMD has issued its outlook for the region as follows.
Isolated rainfall/ snowfall is likely over the hills of North-West India (Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand) and the plains of North-West India on Tuesday. Rainfall may increase in distribution and intensity to light to moderate and fairly widespread to widespread from Wednesday.
Isolated heavy rainfall/snowfall is likely over Jammu & Kashmir on Thursday; Himachal Pradesh Thursday; and over Uttarakhand on Friday. Isolated heavy rainfall is likely over Punjab on Thursday, and over Haryana, Chandigarh and West Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
Thunderstorms, lightning, hail
Thunderstorm accompanied with lightning is forecast at isolated places over Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, West Uttar Pradesh and West Rajasthan on Tuesday. Thunderstorm accompanied with lightning hail and gusty winds (speed reaching 30-40 km/hr) is likely over the hills and plains from tomorrow to Friday.
Interaction of westerly winds associated with the western disturbance and easterly winds over Central and East India will trigger moderate isolated to scattered rainfall with isolated thunderstorm, lightning/hail/gusty wind (speed reaching 30-40 km/hr) over Vidarbha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha till Friday.
Impact over weather in South
The interaction has cut open a wind discontinuity (where opposing winds meet and create narrow corridor of lower pressure) from Marathwada down to South Tamil Nadu. This is the spine of pre-monsoon weather around which thunderstorm fester through the season. The dipping westerlies from the incoming active western disturbance will further feed thunderstorms with moisture from the Arabian Sea.
Afternoon satellite pictures on Tuesday showed clouding extending from Dharmavaram and Shivamogga down to Tumakuru, Tiptur, Hassan, Bengaluru, Shravanabelagola, Madikeri, Mandya, Mysuru, Bandipur Tiger Reserve and National Park (Karnataka); Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu); Palakkad (Kerala); and the inter-state border along Kannur, Kozhikode and Malappuram districts of Kerala.
The week ending March 17 may witness thundershowers over parts of Kerala while the following week (March 17 to 25) would see it extending into parts of adjoining Tamil Nadu, an outlook from the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction said. Meanwhile, IMD statistics reveal that the country as a whole has received excess showers so far during the pre-monsoon season (March 1 to 9) with deficits mainly coming in from parts of North-East India, Tamil Nadu and the Andaman & Nicobar Islands alone.
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