Thursday, July 19, 2012

Maharashtra reservoirs, Mumbai Lakes Position and Pune reservoirs levels updated...see Mumbai Page.


Synoptic Situation today (Thursday):


The Monsoon trough continues to run North of the normal position and runs along the Himalayan foothills. Meanwhile the off shore trough along the west coast remains strong due to Wednesday's embedded vortex. 


The Eastern trough has shortened and lies from Sikkim to the Bay.
The vortex has weakened on Thursday itself, weakening the off shore trough along the west coast. 


An UAC has formed in the North Bay, and is at around 500 hpa. 


It is likely to descend to sea level as a low by the 21st, Saturday, as a low at 998 mb. Should be positioned at around 20N, off the Orissa coast.


As it is likely to remain over the waters till Sunday, it could deepen to 996 mb, or even 994 mb by Sunday. Low will move west on Sunday/Monday and most likely fizzle out in the region around Vidharbha.


Once the low forms, we can expect the monsoon axis to slide southwards. It could be positioned from Pakistan thru Rajasthan thru North MP and Chattisgarh into the Low.(See Map)
Consequently, the West coast trough could strengthen and activate again.


Outlook Summery for Friday 20th/Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd: 





Good Rains Likely in Vidharbha, Eastern Marathwada, Konkan, North interior AP, Chatiisgarh and Eastern MP
Heat likely in Rajasthan and adjoining Sindh (Pakistan)


Friday: The Monsoon Axis remains in the North, hence heavy rainfall is expected in UP. Region around Lucknow can recieve heavy rains on Friday.
Precipitation remains good in South Konkan/Goa, but decreases in the North Konkan region.


Saturday: As the UAC descends, rainfall in the SW quadrant of the UAC/Low increases. We may see some precipitation gathering strength in the North MP, and adjoining Vidharbha. Rains will be heavy in the Ramagundam region of AP. Light rains, upto 10 mms penetrating into Interior Karnataka and Madhya Mah.
NW India and Gujarat almost dry with no meaningfull rains.
Strong Westerly winds blowing in Saurashtra.


Sunday: Heavy rainfall area spreads a little to the west, with Vidharbha region and adjoining Marathwada and North AP getting very heavy rains. Madhya Mah too will get medium to heavy rains.
Rains will also increase along the Karnataka coast and entire Konkan belt. As the Monsoon axis moves south the off shore trough gains strenghth by Sunday.


Friday/Saturday/Sunday: For Pakistan, rains will be restricted to the Northern plains. Light rains in the North. Lahore can get some light rains.
Sindh will be dry and hot. Hot westerly winds will sweep the sindh regions, raising dust storms in some regions.
Karachi will get light drizzles, but Hyderabad will be dry, and day temperature could touch 41c. Sukkur will be dry and hotter with the day temperature at 43/44c.
I do not think there will be any effect of this low in Pakistan...but we will observe and follow the developments.


City Forecasts:


Mumbai: Gone are the signs of rainy and monsoon days..at least till Sunday !


Friday: Partly cloudy with 3/4 showers throughout the day, out of which a couple of them will be heavy in some parts of city. Rain Amount: 20 mms.


Saturday: sunny spells and partly cloudy by afternoon. showers by late afternoon/evening. But not persistent, and distributed in parts of city. Rain amount: 10-15 mms


Sunday: generally cloudy, with more frequent showers. Intensity increasing by evening, and getting heavier. Rain Amount: 30-35 mms.


Pune: Hate to put up such a miserable forecast for this city ....hopefully a better forecast from Monday !


Friday/Saturday: Partly cloudy. Few light showers or drizzles in some parts. Rain Amount: 5-7 mms.
Sunday: Cloudy in the day with light drizzle. A light shower expected in some parts by evening. Rain Amount 5-10 mms.


Surat: Friday/Saturday/Sunday: No definite indications of any meaningfull rains approaching..partly cloudy with upto 5-10 mms/day.


Delhi: Friday/Saturday might see light drizzles in some parts, more likely on Saturday afternoon. 
But Sunday will be dry and hot. Weekend temperatures to touch 40c and maybe cross 40c in NCR somewhere.


Bangalore: This city need more rains urgently...this is only an expression..and sadly the forecast is nowhere near it...Again, no rainfall increase seen these days. Just about 5 mms/day in some areas.


Chennai:  Not much rain expected this weekend for the city.


Hyderabad (India): Friday and Saturday will see light rains ,drizzle, in some parts, but a little increase in rains on Sunday. Maybe a sharper shower by sunday afternoon with rain amounts upto 10 mms.

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25 comments:

Abhijit Modak said...

@ Rajesh Sir. I want to know what conditions produces such strong gusty winds ! Because today full days winds speed are more than normal. Many times only before rains arrival winds blow gusty at times then windy conditions reduces after rain is steady or settled! But today winds are gusty through out day in North Konkan region.

Rajan Alexander said...

Rajesh. Your forecasting skill is getting better and better like old wine.

Wish IMD could produce such details in the near layman style understanding.

I suppose it is because they don't, that people turn to you as an alternative.

Keep at it

Rajesh said...

Thanks Rajan: Getting a word of praise from Rajan is like achieving a degree in meteorology !

Abhijit: Firstly, have you seen the pressure falling today (on Vagaries'Readings Page). While observing the winds, you must observe all the parameters which could cause the changes..shows the trough deepening, and winds rushing from the west below the axis..see in my forecast i have put more winds in Gujarat..

sset said...

Rajesh - SW Monsoon was very vigourous over Konkan on thursday. As per IMD reports all places got rains 150-200mm range. But was very weak over coastal karanataka/kerala.

Bangalore if same continues next few years -city may show towards desertification and mass evacuation of companies and people elsewhere!!!


Correct GSB - as per previous years aanalysis rains are decreasing over south ppeninsular India but Konkan rains show an increasing trend.
(this year okay - some exceptions)

Abhijit Modak said...

@ Rajesh Sir. Thank you very much for guiding and providing scientific way to observe weather conditions. Last 48hrs we saw heavy rains over Interior North Konkan and also on Western ghats belt. So now Barvi dam must have crossed 1000mm rainfall mark till today 8.30am and may also 40% full now. So please update latest data of Barvi dam too.

Joshi said...

Rajesh Sir,
Thanks for reading my yesterday's comments and adding Hyderabad to list of forecast.
Thank you very much Sir. I will put comments back during weekend with actuals.

Vijayanand said...

Rajesh,
Excellent analysis. Hope rain increases over karnatka in the coming week.

Vijayanand said...

Not sure how we can decide rains are decreasing over southern peninsula and increasing over Konkan. I yesterday shared Bangalore rains for the last 7 years from 2004. It shows average rains increasing from 97 cms to 114 cms. Last year as we all know the rains in bangalore reached 118 cms. This appears to be a freak year. Guess every city faces it from time to time.
Hope IMD comes up with rainfall average for every decade. If we have rainfall data from 2001 to 2010, it would help.

Vijayanand said...

Bangalore if same continues next few years -city may show towards desertification and mass evacuation of companies and people elsewhere!!!
From sset

From 1901 to 2000 IMD stats:
Bangalore [93 cms] , Pune [70 cms] , and Hyderabd [83 cms]
Frankly Bangalore is performing better that other non coastal cities
along deccan plateau. As far as recent years performance for bangalore is concerned, I have already shared the data. Infact the average is over 100 cms.Every city has its strength and weakness. Lets be fair in our assessment.

Anonymous said...

Everybody here is concerned about BANGALORE,nobody is talking about DELHI which is really facing drought like conditions. BANGALORE can get rain in october,november too but for DELHI its only july,august and half september.

Anonymous said...

Rajeshbhai, out of gloom over interior maharashtra & karnataka, there is afterall some cheer for central india i.e. Vidarbha & adjoining MP...........potey

Rajesh said...

Thanks to our reader's contributions and updates, We, at Vagaries, get International and National Weather reports well in advance, and much before it is published on press.
What is published in the Mumbai TOI on the 20th, about the drought in the US, was informed to us by Cmdr. Potey on the 19th itself...
"A report in The Hindu

U.S. facing ‘worst drought’ in 25 years

The United States is facing its “worst drought” in 25 years that could fuel food price inflation as crop yields are hit, a top Obama Administration official has warned.

As many as 61 per cent of the land mass of the United States is currently being characterised as being impacted by this drought, the Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, told reporters on Wednesday at a White House news conference, noting that this drought is having an impact in crops.

“78 per cent of the corn crop is now in an area designated as drought impacted; 77 per cent of the soybeans that are being grown in this country also impacted. .....potey.
Thanks all for updating and keeping Vagaries abreast with the latest !

GSB said...

@Vijayanand , did you see my comment in the previous section? I have provided a link to the report which says that rainfall has been decreasing over the Karnataka plains in the past fifty years...

www.tropmet.res.in/~lip/Publication/RR-pdf/RR-121.pdf

Ofcourse the last ten years might have been good but that has to be analysed..

emkay said...

for second weekend in succession IMD sends out a false alarm of heavy rains next 48 hours for Mumbai !! feel like telling those guys to look up vagaries before rushing to press.

Vijayanand said...

@GSB : Thanks for sharing the doc.

I have not yet gone through the entire document. The stats collected for Karnataka plateau is from a very large area.
(Bangalore, Shimoga, Tumkur, Mysore, Belgaum, Dharwar, Bellary, Bijapur, Mercara,
Chitaldurg, Chikmagalur, Kolar, Mandya, Bidar, Gulbarga, Raichur and Hassan)
One can divide it into 3 area. North Part of plateau [Belgaum, Dharwar, Bellary, Bijapur]
Malnad Regions [Chikmagalur, Mercara]
South Interior Karnataka [Bangalore , Hassan, Mysore]
I guess the stats for each of these area would throw up different picture.

Its going to take some time to review the document. Its very huge :)

Vijayanand said...

Karnataka Plateau :
1982-2006 sharp decrease.
1865-1981 increase

Sharp decrease is specified only for 24 years. Prior to that 116 years show increase.
Unless numbers are available for years from 1982 to 2011 , the observation from the report cannot be validated.

Overall its a nice report.

RK said...

@Rajesh, your forecast till Sunday is a bad news for Delhi region, it is already facing very dry conditions with temperature around 40. Seems like monsoon has forgotten this region...
I hope for a change soon else NW India is heading for drought...

Anonymous said...

I stay in Koramangala, Bangalore and I can say that no one is going anywhere. Also, as one of the reader from Delhi suggests, Bangalore does recieve rains in NE monsoon too.
It's understood that this is a bad year, let's see how things develop further. Continuously saying Bangalore is going to be desert will not make it happen, also I would suggest that writing the same thing again and again is not interesting reading and does not add any value.

Ron said...

so the low pressure has indeed formed..imd also predicting another low in NW bob on 26th...

Rajan Alexander said...

It does look that from now to until end of this month, there should be a recovery as all elements of the monsoon apparently in place. During this period, we should probably see the the best rainfall seen for the two months - June-July.

But a "real, sustained" agricultural recovery is only possible if the first two weeks of August is at least 90-95% of LPA and are evenly distributed, particularly covering the NW.

Does any one have some preliminary inkling how the first two weeks of Aug could pan out and why?

The El Nino seems to have petered out for the time being but should re-surface again some time down the line

Shitij said...

Nothing to say much about the weather because from the last few days weather is same i.e. partly cloudy weather and no meaningful rain. In the terms of weather July=May.

Anonymous said...

@ annoy Yes, agreed. Of late i see the discussion here getting repetitive. Its my personal opinion that some readers exercise restraint.

Rajesh said...

Low rainfall conditions are faced by many states of India as on today..I have put up the latest map from IMD on current weather Page..whether it is NW India or South India, we need the rains for the betterment of the cities and rural areas...if Blore gets NE Monsoon, Delhi gets the WD rains, and quite substantial at times..anyway, its critical that all regions get rains..The latest deficits are:
Delhi -56%, North Karnataka -37%, South Karnataka -50%, B'Lore -38%, Punjab -69% and Saurashtra/Kutch -73%.
Rajan: Yes, there is a partial recovery of the monsoon, infact, the june deficit regions ran into excess for the July period...However, I see a back to back low in the last week also, and then for Aug. i have my doubts, as a weak MJO till 12 th Aug will bring High pressure over the Peninsula region...
Readers, Please be free to correct or modify my assessment..

Rajan Alexander said...

On the dot Rajesh. The central govt asked Maharashtra, Karnataka to go for contingency plans. Why would they do that if they feel optimistic the rains will pick up?

Next week the IMD will announce a further downgrade of their forecast, unless the rains from now on is better than those forecasted by them.

sset said...

If I am correct, Bangalore never received measurable NE monsoon for last 5 years- NE monsoon continues to remain weak.

Leo Saldana,Suresh Hubbilkar,Yallapa Reddy,Janet Yagneshwaran prominent environmentalist from Bangalore all agree - and we all have continues fight with corrupt BBMP,BDA,BMRCL wrong planning.


Anyway as mentioned - let nature take its course- only reason it was repeated here was change in rainfall pattern - partly due to large scale tree felling, no afforestation,lakes dried up for IT / real estate/ malls.

Imagine with serious drought Karnataka is facing, karanataka state government is performing pujas worth 20crores!!! Money could have been utlized to help poor people in drought - farmeres, tree plantation. Faith to God is important but not at expense of suffering. Karnataka state MLAS are going abroad with another expenses worth 200crores - when city planning they can learn from NAVI MUMBAI- MAHARASHTRA- GREATEST PLANNED CITIES WITH ENVIRONMENT- CIDCO makes cities.

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