Clouds over South-East Bay revive hopes of monsoon breaking a jinx
the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) expects the monsoon to resume its much-delayed voyage anytime now from the South Andaman Sea, Nankori (Nicobar), and the adjacent South East Bengal Bay, where it left off for the past 10 days.
IMD frequently set two-day windows during this period for the monsoon to begin, which it refused to oblige.
Delayed over Myanmar
On Monday, continued uncertainty around the southeastern Gulf gave some credence to the IMD’s revised assessment on the ground, bolstered by the announcement that the offensive had begun on neighboring Myanmar.
This in itself came at least seven to ten days later than normal. Myanmar’s Department of Meteorology and Hydrology expects two low pressure areas to form over the Andaman Sea and Gulf over the next four to five days, one of which may intensify into a depression.
A reference to Kerala?
Meanwhile, forecasts by two US agencies of permeable water in the lower atmosphere (indicating clouds and rain) appear to delay the onset of the monsoon over Kerala in mainland India until a 10-day period between June 7 and 16.
This would at best fall within IMD’s June 4 start window (plus or minus four days), or even a little later.
Western unrest rule
It was seen anchored over Himachal Pradesh as a cyclonic spin on Monday morning, even as fresh disturbances occurred in far eastern Iran, preparing to enter Afghanistan.
The network of cyclonic flows and basins must completely clean up before the monsoons can establish themselves over the mainland.
This will not happen until the deep western disturbances, with spurs that pierce the south in the form of weather-friendly fluctuating basins, with built-in cyclonic circulation, stop moving across the plains of northwest India.
From this perspective, it seems that the next unrest spotted in eastern Iran will be the last in the current series.