Mirage
an image, produced by very hot air, of something that seems to be far away but does not really exist
The last couple of days in a way has been a reflection of how this year’s Northeast Monsoon season has panned out. A season of Mirages. Starting from the mid October depression it has mostly been so near yet so far. Almost every disturbance started with a lot of promise and ended with a whimper. We hope the current deep depression does not follow the same trend.
After moving North for nearly 36 hours along the East Coast of Sri Lanka the Deep Depression has remained stationary for the past 12 hours. A combination of high wind shear and proximity to the Sri Lankan landmass has robbed the Deep Depression of its structure drastically. This has meant the disturbance is now fighting for survival and to help itself it is trying to relocate itself to the Northeast. In search of the open waters of Bay of Bengal. For better conditions to survive.
Weather models picked up a stall scenario for the Deep Depression during it’s journey. This was highlighted as well in our post on 26th November. Crucially the worry now is whether the stall is happening off Sri Lanka coast instead of the originally estimated East of Delta coast. This change in conditions is likely to influence the rest of the journey for this Deep Depression. The landfall points could get altered shifting south from the originally estimated area. The rainfall prospects also could alter based on the stall scenario as convergence zones also change. As things stand the only constant in this changing dynamics is the landfall date. 30th November continues to remain the landfall date for most models.
IMD continues to expect this disturbance to become a Cyclonic Storm. JTWC in it’s latest alert has also maintained a high chance for Tropical Cyclone formation. Looking at the current conditions there is less chance for this disturbance to intensify into a Cyclonic Storm. The overall timeline will now continue to extend until 30th November. During which period the disturbance is likely to maintain its deep depression status. But the rainfall prospects for Coastal Tamil Nadu gets drastically altered depend on stall location and movement. Last night was a perfect example of how a small change in movement and direction can change rains for Coastal areas. While widespread rains were expected for Coastal Tamil Nadu except for isolated rains in delta there was no rains anywhere.
Keeping this in mind we will refrain from posting any rainfall estimate charts for the next few days until the Depression completes it’s journey. All previous rainfall estimate charts for this disturbance stands cancelled. We take this opportunity to apologise to all those who had to make / cancel / change your plans based on our earlier rainfall / deep depression updates for the next few days.