Wednesday, October 18, 2006


With the monsoon gone, the winds have immedietly changed direction and are now, blowing from the north east, almost throughout the central parts of India.
The city of Mumbai has suddenly started heating up, taking the locals by surprise. This is due to the total absence of the westerly sea breeze which has kept the city cool for the last 5 months. Easterlies are now blowing over the city and thus keeping the temperatures high. This is expected to reverse in another 2 days,and temperatures are expected to fall in North India,Gujarat and North Maharashtra.In the picture above,notice the sudden rise in the temperature from 11th October,the day the rains stopped in Mumbai.
The South West Monsoon has been formally been announced as widhrawn from the sub continent as on 17th October. Overall, it was -1% for the country as a whole and excess in the central parts. Parts of the extreme south and North East were in the deficit.
I agree with Jim's blog of yesterday, that there are many factors that have a bearing on the final performance of the South West Monsoon. Starting with the temperatures of March in India to the sea temperatures off the coast of Sudan, a variety of parameters have been proved to have an effect on the rains. The building up of the heat low, and its timing have an important bearing on the time of arrival of the monsoon. Another far away factor, in fact the initial, is the cooling of the Southern Indian Ocean between Africa and Australia, to create the"high" there and shoot off the trade winds towards the equator. I think maybe we should leave this discussion for the next season.

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