Tropical Moisture Along the Equator Feels Songda's Pull

Songda ramps up to super typhoon strength (www.thehindubusinessline.com)

The pull exerted by Songda on tropical moisture along the equator saw further convergence of monsoon clouds over the south Arabian Sea and adjoining equatorial Indian Ocean past Maldives and even approaching Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, global models continued to maintain a watch for the formation of a weather system in the southeast Arabian Sea close to the Kerala coast during the first 10 days of June.

Some of these models also hinted the possibility of concurrent activity near the Oman coast during this period but without significant collateral damage to the monsoonal system.

In fact, the Climate Prediction Centre (CPC) of the US National Weather Services in its latest outlook valid for May 25 to 31 pointed to a band of enhanced convection and rainfall extending from south Arabian Sea towards equatorial Indian Ocean and Sri Lanka.

This is likely the handiwork of a Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) wave, a periodical upper air low-pressure wave, with direct impact on ground level weather and mostly associated with monsoon onsets.

The eastward propagating wave is seen as crossing into the Bay of Bengal during June 1 to 7 and entering South China Sea and the Maritime Continent (Indonesia, Malaysia etc), which is just as it should.

Global Forecasting System model of the CPC has hinted about the possibility of convective activity peaking to a high in south and southeast Arabian Sea during June 2 to 8.

Meanwhile, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has reduced the countdown for onset of southwest monsoon over South Andaman Sea to two days.

Satellite pictures on Thursday afternoon showed convective (rain-bearing) clouds rising over parts of Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, northeast Rajasthan, Bihar, Jharkhand, Gangetic West Bengal, Orissa, Madhya Maharashtra, south peninsular India, east and south Bay of Bengal, Andaman Sea and south Arabian Sea.