The Hindu Business Line : Cyclonic circulation behind Mumbai downpour

AN upper air cyclonic circulation over north Konkan and adjoining Madhya Maharashtra has been blamed for Friday's heavy downpour in Mumbai, which brought back memories of the killer drencher that hit the metropolis less than two months ago.

Speaking to Business Line, Dr Akhilesh Gupta of the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF) ruled out any chance of rains sustaining to a scale where they could replicate the July 25/26 cloudburst. However, exact rainfall figures for the day were not available at the time of going to press.

Dr Gupta warned that the circulation packs enough punch to keep the wet spell on for the next 48 hours, punctuated only by heavy to very heavy falls. But it doesn't necessarily mean that the `eye' of the system will be focused on Mumbai alone.

In fact, the met subdivisions of North Konkan, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada Vidarbha, Gujarat, Orissa and north coastal Andhra Pradesh are well advised to keep up their guards over the next 48 hours. Model predictions show the circulation tracking a westward course and dissipating over the Gujarat region subsequently.

In another update, the NCMRWF deferred the development of a fresh low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal off Orissa-Andhra Coast by a day to Tuesday (September 13). This is a system expectedly being spawned by a migrating remnant of a weather system originating in the South China Sea.

Meanwhile, overall seasonal rainfall up till the week ending September 7 has shown an enlarged deficit of eight per cent. According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the actual rainfall till date was 707.0 mm against a normal of 765.3 mm. The latest figure represented a decline of 2 per cent in recorded rainfall week-on-week. The mounting deficit could be largely attributed to the lean patch in the six contiguous met subdivisions in the northwest and the rest three in the east/northeast. The deficits reported from the northwest are (in percentage figures): Punjab (-22), Haryana (-23), West Rajasthan (-39), East Rajasthan (-23), West Uttar Pradesh (-28) and West Madhya Pradesh (-23).

The three rain-starved subdivisions in the east and northeast are Jharkhand (-37), Assam and Meghalaya (-20) and Nagaland-Manipur-Mizoram-Tripura (-28).

During the 24 hours ending Friday morning, fairly widespread rains with isolated heavy falls were reported from coastal Orissa, Gujarat region and Marathwada. Scattered to moderate rains occurred over coastal Andhra Pradesh, coastal Tamil Nadu, Konkan, Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, coastal and south interior Karnataka, Kerala, Lakshadweep and West Rajasthan.

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