Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Monsoon 2009: We had earliar termed the initial early start as a "false star." Now, I think we will have to call it a " ceased start" altogether !


No positive indications seem to be be buiding up as on today.


The ECMRWF does show a low in the bay around the 19th. Subsequently, as per them, it becomes a depression crosses the Andhra coast around the 24th. If this prediction holds on, then, we can witness a revival of the monsoon all along the "subdued" regions from the 19th.


The interiors of the central and southern Peninsula will get rains and the central regions, upto M.P. and south Gujarat can get rains between the 20th. and 25th. On the formation of this predicted low, the west coast, and north Konkan, can see a progress of the monsoon, which can then reach Mumbai by the 20th.


But, before counting our "chickens before they are hatched", I will wait till the low actually forms ( looking at the current behaviour of the monsoon).


And, the negative point ! A German forecast model, COLA, the NCMRWF (Noida) and at least 1 other International Model, show no signs of any low forming in the Bay around this date !!


The above models do not show any rains progressing, that is there is no monsoon progress as per them, till the 21st.from the current position.( Mumbai and Mah./Gujarat included).

In this case, then, the current monsoon regions will continue with weak rains.


Of- course, the Arabian Sea is devoid of any system forming till the last week of June.


For the SW Monsoon, very little advance is made since the last week in May. What had been a 1/2 week early advance has now become and retreated to 1/2 weeks behind schedule.
A question on everyone's mind, WHY? why have the rains halted their advance?


As mentioned in the last blog, the warming of the ses in the central Pacific, and the trend going towards an El-Nino phase could be one resaon.

Another factor is the still continuing W.Ds. As Jim puts it "`stubbornness` of the Westerlies to yield ground over the Pakistan and north India''. For the northern subcontinent region, due to the W.D.s, dry air from the west continues (even today), and sporadic rains, specially in Sindh and Rajasthan areas, have dipped the minimum temperatures to "undesirably" low levels. ( The deep blue tongue of extreme low in the map shows the sharp dip).

And the core pressure at the centre of the monsoon low has now risen to 1000 mb.


Now what ? Wait, and observe, day by day, the developments, and non developments, and as indicated, I will blog my observation on a day to day observation basis.





3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Monsoon not progressing is one problem, but the other problem that I see is that even in the regions where Monsoon has arrived do not seem to be seeing heavy rains that are associated in June - July (or are they?)

Rajesh said...

you are correct. Rainfall in the monsoon regions of coastal Karnataka and Goa is a little below normal but Kerala is weak. In the states of W.B. and north-east , monsoon current is weak.

Anonymous said...

Yes, that's what I thought. One can hope that the monsoon would be near normal by September end (the arguments around El nino not withstanding).
Don't know what would happen in case of a bleak monsoon coupled with the current global recession. The power situation would go from bad to worse and inflation would rise dramatically.

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