Weather: Low forms in Bay, away from TN coast

A low-pressure area has formed over the East-Central Bay of Bengal off the Myanmar coast, far away from Tamil Nadu and India’s East Coast, after a typhoon from the South China Sea hit Vietnam a couple of days ago and a remnant crossed Thailand and Myanmar to enter the Bay.

As predicted, by both India Meteorological Department (IMD) and private forecaster Skymet Weather, the system would likely get a move towards the Bangladesh coast during Sunday and Monday. Already, it has cut a trough towards Bangladesh, showing its likely track of movement.

Low too far away from TN coast

Thanks to the sheer distance away from the Tamil Nadu coast, it would not have any beneficial effect on the North-East monsoon, which has been idling over large parts of the South Peninsula over the past couple of days with bright October sun beating down on many parts.

What should be of interest closer home is the presence of a persisting cyclonic circulation over the Tamil Nadu coast while another that has shown up over the South-East Arabian Sea off Kerala. Both are ideally placed to get the easterly to north-easterly flows in the Bay to some order.

Bay, Arabian Sea circulations

The IMD has forecast isolated to scattered rainfall activity with moderate thunderstorm and lightening over Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Karaikal and Kerala. Isolated heavy rainfall has been forecast over Tamil Nadu during the next five days and over Kerala on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh-bound low would trigger scattered to widespread rainfall over the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura while it would be isolated to scattered over Assam, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Sikkim during next 3-4 days.

Isolated heavy rainfall with moderate thunderstorm and lightning may break out over Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura during next two days. Isolated very heavy rainfall was predicted to for Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura on Saturday.

Squally weather warned

Squally weather (wind speeds of 40-50 km/hr) was predicted over East-Central and adjoining North-East Bay on Saturday and progressively over North-East and adjoining East-Central Bay on Sunday, indicating a likely strengthening of the low-pressure area. Fishermen are advised not to venture into this area.

Meanwhile, an extended fortnightly outlook by the IMD has assessed that North-East monsoon would strengthen and rains scale up over the South Peninsula during the week starting November 5 (Thursday next).

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