Preparatory circulation forms in Bay ahead of low

A preparatory cyclonic circulation has formed over North-West ad adjoining West-Central Bay of Bengal on Wednesday which India Meteorological Department (IMD) expects to concentrate as the next low-pressure area off the Odisha and North Andhra Pradesh coasts by Thursday and strengthen the monsoon current.

The circulation is situated close to the coast and would take its own time to deepen as a low-pressure area over the next two to three days. Over this period, it would rally around monsoon flows from both the Bay of Bengal as well as from the Arabian Sea across the peninsula, bringing rainfall under their footprint.

Clouds spread out over North-West

The larger monsoon trough extended from Ferozepur (the western end, slightly North of its normal position) and passed through Kaithal, Moradabad, Gonda, Gaya, Shantiniketan, Canning and thence southeastwards to North-East Bay. The low-pressure area is brewing not too far from the area where the eastern end dips into the Bay.

Satellite pictures on Wednesday evening showed monsoon clouds spreading out over North-West India with the densest spotted over Charanga, Dungarpur, Udaipur and Baler (Rajasthan); Sivpuri, Sagar, Hatta and Chhatarpur (Madhya Pradesh); Jhansi, Lalitpur, Fatehpur, Allahabad, Shahganj, Varanasi, Farrukhabad, Aligarh, and Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh); and Kawardha, Korba and Ambikapur (Chhattisgarh); and Medininagar and Jamshedpur (Jharkhand).

The proximity to the buzz in the sea waters and associated easterly winds have caused some of the clouding to spill into the East Coast and adjoining interior from Rayagada into Srikakulam, Visakapatnam, Kakinada, Vijayawada, Machilipatnam, Macheria, and Khammam with some bands drifting into Warangal and Hyderabad on Wedsesday evening.

Heavy to very heavy rain forecast

Meanwhile, the strength of the monsoon even ahead of the low has caused a secondary trough to extend from West-Central Bay to North Bihar (North-South) and cut through Jharkhand, the plains of West Bengal and the North-West Bay. This would redirect some of the monsoon moisture in this direction and fall as rain across the region.

The IMD outlook for Thursday suggested heavy to very rainfall with extremely heavy falls over Gujarat region; Heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places over Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, East Rajasthan, West Madhya Pradesh, Saurashtra, Kutch, the Ghats area of Madhya Maharashtra, Konkan, Goa, Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

It would be heavy over Himachal Pradesh, East Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, hills of West Bengal, Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura and Coastal Karnataka. A few of the states in the North-West of India have been running a deficit from the beginning of the season.

Severe thunderstorms rage

Moderate to severe thunderstorm accompanied with lightning are over Uttar Pradesh and East Rajasthan; thunderstorm accompanied with lightning at isolated places over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi, West Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, plains of West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, the North-Eastern States, Coastal Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Rayalaseema.

The 24 hours ending on Wednesday morning delivered extremely heavy rainfall recorded over East Uttar Pradesh; heavy to very heavy rainfall over Uttarakhand, Haryana, East Madhya Pradesh, East Rajasthan, Gujarat region; heavy over West Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, hills of West Bengal , Meghalaya, Konkan & Goa, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Coastal Karnataka.

Some of the stations recording heavy rainfall (in cm) were: Barabanki-22; Kishanganj-17; Shahdol-14; Chandigarh-13; Dhubri-12; Kothagudem-11; Bageshwar, Narendranagar and Varanasi-10; Valparai-9; Rajgarh, Chhatarpur, Rishikesh, Lucknow, Sultanpur, Hamirpur, Sohra and Surat-8 each; Patna, Dinajpur, Saidpur and Matheran-7 each.

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