Thursday, November 30, 2006

The trough of low off the west coast has again resulted in some rain in the Ghats.Mahableshwar had 20mm of rain today and Pune 3mm.This isolated rain and cloudiness has sent the night temperatures well above the normal.
In the North,that is Afghanistan,Pakistan and N.India,a strong W.D.is likely to result in heavy snow over the mountains and heavy rain in the plains from Saturday.As Jim mentions,the strong system is likely to result in rain even on the Makran Coast and the rains will move into India by Monday.The weather over the region will warm up a bit,prior to the system,and subsequently the weather will get cold.

For Gujarat and Maharashtra region,the weather will get cold by next week,with North winds effectively cooling the area.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

In South India,the N.E.Monsoon is playing truant,and very few isolated showers are being recorded.In fact the seasonal rains down south have almost dried out,and the natural rhythm of the Monsoon has vanished.This is because the ITCZ is too far down south of its normal position,and lies aligned to the equator.Forecasters are looking to the presently active storm in the Pacific,"Durian",to trigger some activity in the Bay.But this is still 6-7 days away.The remnant low will cross the Vietnam coast around 4th.December,and hopefully push a low in the Andaman Sea around the 7th.,after which it will have to be watched.

Meanwhile,to the west,an active system is approaching the the Gulf area.It is likely to cause cloudy weather over the Northern Gulf area from 29th.November,with rain in Dubai(maybe thunder)on 2nd.and 3rd.December(Saturday/Sunday).Lower down,Muscat will see cloudy weather from Wednessday,and some rain on Saturday.Temperatures will remain cool at 28°,and a shade cooler on the weekend in Muscat,around 26-27°.But the Khassab region will get heavier rain on the weekend.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

The passing of the W.D. from N.India has at last brought the cold weather,to the Northern parts of the sub continent.Temperatures have dropped in most parts of the North(Islamabad 4°,Amritsar 8°,Delhi going down,finally,to 11°).Night readings are lower now in the Sind area of Pakistan with Nokkundi dropping to 3°,and are expected to fall further in adjoining Rajasthan.This year's first snowfall was reported from Gulmarg and other tourist areas of Kashmir and from Kufri near Simla.

Maharashtra has again reverted back to stuffy weather due to the clouding effect of the Arabian Sea system.Jet streams in the upper atmosphere have pushed in a lot of clouds over Maharashtra,resulting in rain(yet again)in Pune,Nasik,Aurangabad and Mahableshwar.

Next week,the Norhtern parts of the Gulf area is expected to get isolated rain,thereby causing the temperatures to drop.Muscat may see a fall in night temperatures from next week.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Since I am fond of birds and ornithology,I found this event,which I read in the BBC News,very interesting.Also connected with the weather,so even more fascinating.

More than 1,500 people descended on a Devon coastal spot last weekend it was to catch a glimpse of a seabird that is more typically seen in parts of Asia. The birdwatchers are in the news again, after descending on the seaside village of Dawlish in Devon, where a long-billed murrelet had been spotted for the first time in Britain.Some undertook awfully long trip just to spy a feathered creature that, on a murky day, might be mistaken by a non-expert for a sea gull.And this also means tuning into changes - and seeing the evidence of climate change. Little egrets, once a rarity in U.K., are "here every day now. It must be to do with the weather, there's no way round it".

Some common terms for a birder are like when anyone suspected of over-stating their "conquests" is known in the trade as a "stringer."

Anyone who travels to see a bird which refuses to show itself, has been "dipping". Mr Vaughan once spent a fruitless eight hours, waiting for a "no show".

But there are not too many youngsters in the field now.What are they missing? Asks
Mr Vaughan who works at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' latest venture.
"There are those moments... like it's 5am and you're listening to a dawn chorus and it feels like you've got it all to yourself.

"Or you might have got up really early and been waiting for hours and then 40,000 birds fly overhead together. You get that same kick that means you just say 'wow' and start to laugh."

Sunday, November 19, 2006

The off-shore trough prevailing in the Arabian Sea has suddenly formed into a low pressure area.This will result in rain in the areas of Ratnagiri,Solapur,Kolhapur,Satara,Sangli and some light rain over the Mumbai area by Sunday night.Rain will be more heavy and widespread over the South coast and Lakshdweep islands.This should be short lived,as the low will move away fast.

Resultantly,the night temperatures which had started dropping over Maharashtra and Mumbai,will rise for a few days.But overall temperatures continue to be above normal over most of India.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Minita from Muscat has asked me to write about the weather expected there. Well, as Minita correctly says, the weather has been persistently hot in Muscat. The first graph of the maximum temperatures of the last one month shows the temperature hovering around 34°c almost daily, with a couple of exceptions, when it went above 38°c. The heat has pulled on a little longer than usual.

But there seems to be a little relief from Saturday 18th, and you may see some cloudiness from Saturday and the temperatures will go down, marginally, to 30°c- 31°c.That means it will come to normal levels. But that will prove some sort of relief at least. The last few years have not seen above normal temperatures, and had been around 29°c-31°c during this period in Muscat.

Another interesting event coming up is that On Sunday, Nov. 19th, Earth will pass through a stream of debris from comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle. The result: a shower of Leonid meteors. "We expect an outburst of more than 100 Leonids per hour," says Bill Cooke, the head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office in Huntsville, AL. Cooke urges observers to find the darkest possible skies. "These Leonids are going to be faint." Why? "The stream contains very small grains of comet dust. Small grains make faint meteors--it's as simple as that."

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Todays write up is in continuation with yesterdays topic. Now that the W.D. mentioned yesterday has moved into N.India, the Northern region has registered a rise in night temperatures today. They were above normal by 5°- 8°c.While, with the clearing of the skies over Maharashtra and the region around, the night temperatures have fallen. This is clearly shown in the annomaly map today.

Another interesting, but unrelated story is the closing in of the 4 inner planets near the sun today. Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury are all crowded around the sun this weekend. The great conjunction is invisible to the human eye (too much sunlight), but SOHO can see it, so please visit www.spaceweather.com .
Todays write up is in continuation with yesterdays topic. Now that the W.D. mentioned yesterday has moved into N.India, the Northern region has registered a rise in night temperatures today. They were above normal by 5°- 8°c.While, with the clearing of the skies over Maharashtra and the region around, the night temperatures have fallen. This is clearly shown in the annomaly map today.

Another interesting, but unrelated story is the closing in of the 4 inner planets near the sun today. Jupiter, Venus, Mars and Mercury are all crowded around the sun this weekend. The great conjunction is invisible to the human eye (too much sunlight), but SOHO can see it, so please visit www.spaceweather.com .

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Well after the monsoon had widhrawn from the Indian peninsular, sporadic rainfall activity continued throughout regions of Maharashtra, Goa, South Gujarat, parts of M.P.and northern areas of Karnatak. (Areas south of the mentioned regions normally get the N.E.Monsoon rains.) These post monsoon rains continued upto 8th November. The latest rain was on the 8th when (in Shiraz's words) Mahableshwar had "violent thunderstorms, most unseason like" and recorded 25mm of rain. During the month of October, and upto 8th November, Mahableshwar had 245mms of rain, Pune 75mm, Aurangabad 142mm, much more than expected, for the post monsoon period. Post monsoon rains, which have lingered on much beyond expectations, and have delayed the setting in of winter in these parts. Temperatures have been above normal, and night temperatures have not fallen below 17°c, in the interior parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat and M.P., where they are normally expected to be 12°c by this time.
Even in the north, the non-arrival of the W.D. has delayed the winter, and temperatures tell the same story there as seen in the temperature map.

But, as on 11th.November, a fairly good W.D. seems to be moving into N.India, and this has already pushed the moist rain belt hanging over the Peninsular southwards. A look at the satellite image of the 11th afternoon clearly shows this. Now that the rain has been pushed south by the drier air, one can expect that the rains have finally given way to colder and drier air for the western and central India. The W.D. will also precipitate the much needed winter rains over Norhtern India from Monday. (It has aleady rained over Pakistan).

Monday, November 06, 2006

Way into the second week of November,and the temperatures in India and Pakistan still show no sign of dropping,even to the normal level.Infact,the day and night temperatures remain above normal even at night as shown in the map.High abnormal temperatures of upto +5 degrees are obseved at many stations in Rajasthan,Gujarat and Maharashtra at night and upto +2 degrees at alomost all stations in the day.

In fact usually dry weather is now expected in Goa,Maharashtra and M.P,but these regions seem to have an extended weak monsoon.Sporadic rain has been seen at regular intervals of 3-5 days from mid October till date.In fact the heaviest rain of 78 mms in a day was at Kolhapur yesterday.Mahableshwar too has had no break since the widhrawal of the monsoon and has recorded 55mms post monsoon.Mumbai had a sudden thunderstorm yesterday(8mm) with the outer surburbs(Ulhasnagar)reporting hail.Many places on the ghats are reporting rain since thew last 2 weeks,thus making it a far too extended rainy season this year.

Troughs of low in the Arabian Sea,and the depression from the bay,has kept the season busy above the Northern limit of the normal winter monsoon,into Maharashtra and parts of M.P.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

With a warm October over, and above normal temperatures in the Indian sub continent,the trend continues in the first few days of November.The night temperatures are 3-5°c above the normal in most parts of north and central India.Due to the prevailing easterlies and absence of northly winds,the above normal tendency continues.Scattered rain in Goa.South Maharashtra,Marathwada and North Karnatak have added to the humidity in recent days.Pune and Mahableshwar had 10mm of rain yesterday,while centres in Goa and Aurangabad had about 2-10mms.

But like an extended summer here,we have an extended winter exactly below in the Southern Indian Ocean.In Australia, snow reportedly fell in the states of New South Wales and Victoria. In the Australian Capital Territory.Canberra was also expecting a flurry of snow on Sunday.The minimum temperature recorded in Canberra on Saturday night was a chilly -1°C (30°F), and a frost is also forecast for the city on Sunday night.
Also,residents in Bicheno, on Tasmania’s east coast, got up early to see the snow falling on Saturday, after reportedly not seeing a flake since 1972. With a chilly southwesterly wind, temperatures dipped to 2°C (36°F) overnight, compared to an average of 8-10°C (46-50°F) at this time of year.

Weather should change to normal very soon in both the hemispheres.

Let's look into the 3rd week of March ( 17th - 21st). Mumbai : Hot weather likely for Mumbai region this week, typical dry hot days of M...