Its been many days since Western Ghats, particularly over Kerala & Tamil Nadu, see sustained spell of rains typical of active Monsoon conditions. While most of August was pretty much of a wash out, September saw spells that lasted a couple of days to a few days at times with some moderate to heavy spells of rains. Thanks to Cyclone Gulab which made landfall over North Andhra Pradesh Coast last evening / night these stretches of Western Ghats will possibly see another spell of moderate to heavy rains lasting once again a couple of days. Kanyakumari district which as of yesterday is under 33% deficit for the Southwest Monsoon season saw widespread rains return last night bringing relief to the people. Though the district saw a very good pre monsoon thunderstorm season a good Southwest Monsoon season is necessary for the dam levels across the district.
Cyclone Gulab, only the 3rd in Bay of Bengal during September since 2000, made landfall last night over the North AP coast near Kalingapattanam as a marginal cyclone. Subsequently it has weakened into a deep depression & is slowly making a general westward movement towards Chhattisgarh / Telangana. The rugged Eastern Ghats around this region will possibly rob the structure of the deep depression & will ensure the system further weakens during the course of the day while travelling inland. At the time of updating the post the 24 hour rainfall accumulation at both the IMD observatories have crossed 25 cms while Kalingapattanam recorded 13 cms rains.
In the meanwhile thanks to the moisture drag created by the cyclone many places in South Kerala & Kanyakumari district in Tamil Nadu recorded moderate to heavy overnight rains with quite a few places crossing 10 cms for the 24 hours ending today morning. Weather models indicate today also moisture drag is likely to create moderate to heavy rains along the Western Ghats in Kerala & Tamil Nadu with isolated places coming under very heavy spell of rains at times. The leeward side of Tamil Nadu will mostly remain dry except for few pockets in South TN which may benefit from pseudo wind convergence associated with the moisture drag.