MUNI THE BOSS

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has joined the outlook for a remnant of erstwhile tropical cyclone ‘Jal' entering the Arabian Sea and re-intensifying.

The cyclonic storm had weakened as a deep depression before crossing the Chennai coast around midnight on Sunday and had wound down further to a depression over land on Monday morning.

The system underwent another round of weakening to lie as a well-marked low-pressure area over interior Karnataka, the evening bulletin of the IMD said on Monday.

REGAINING STRENGTH

Significantly, the bulletin went on to add that the system may keep travelling northwestwards and emerge over Northeast Arabian Sea (off Konkan-Mumbai) by Tuesday where it could regain strength as a depression.

Warm seawaters help convection to build around the system leading to its intensification, but the likely location of the prospective depression may not allow the time and space for further intensification, models seemed to suggest on Monday.

As much is becoming increasingly evident from the fleet-footed manner in which ‘Jal' and its remnant has carried itself so far, as also from its likely behaviour and bearing as assessed by models.

An Insat cloud imagery on Monday afternoon revealed the presence of convective (rain-bearing) clouds over parts of Orissa, South Konkan, Goa, Karnataka, Northwest Bay of Bengal, Andaman Sea and Southeast and East-central Arabian Sea.

WIDESPREAD RAIN

An IMD weather update for the last 24 hours ending Monday morning said that widespread rainfall occurred over North Tamil Nadu, Rayalaseema and Coastal Andhra Pradesh as a weakened ‘Jal' hung over the region. It was fairly widespread over interior Karnataka and coastal Orissa.

Meanwhile, a weather warning valid for the next two days said that isolated heavy rainfall would occur over Coastal Karnataka on Tuesday, and over Konkan and Goa on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Forecast until Thursday spoke about the possibility of fairly widespread rain or thundershowers over Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Orissa on Tuesday.


Scattered rain or thundershowers are also likely in Central and Peninsular India, and Gujarat during this period.

Extended forecast until Saturday indicated the possibility of scattered rainfall activity over Peninsular and adjoining Central India.

International model outlook for the next 10 days suggested that two contrastingly endowed weather systems might take shape over the Bay of Bengal.

While the first one would be a weak low-pressure area washing over Southeast Tamil Nadu coast, some models see a stronger system materialising over East-central Bay of Bengal by November 15.

This would likely be a disturbance entering the Andaman Sea from the Gulf of Thailand, nearly mirroring the evolution of Tropical Cyclone Jal.

The US Navy's Fleet Numerical Meteorological and Oceanography Centre sees the possibility of another cyclonic storm in the Eastern Bay around this time.

The Central Weather Bureau, Taiwan, too has retained its earlier outlook for such a system spinning up in the Bay.

The bureau has gone a step further indicating the Tamil Nadu coast as a likely place for landfall around November 19 or 20. But meteorological experts are of the view that this timeline is far too off to take a sure-fire call on this eventuality.