Storm watch returns to Arabian Sea

The US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) has once again put the low-pressure area in east-central Arabian Sea under watch for intensification.
In the latest update available yesterday morning, the JTWC said that the low-level circulation centre around which the storm builds has moved further west to Mumbai.
There now exists an increased potential for consolidation between the mid-level circulation and the LLCC, the JTWC assessed.
This is because the anticipated warming and collapse of cloud tops after the daytime convective maximum is not occurring.
Satellite imagery indicates intense convection consolidating around the LLCC which is tracking slowly westward and has become better defined during the past 12 hours.
The JTWC located the area of convection to little less than 400 km west-southwest of Mumbai.
The US agency also said that an expected Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) event, a periodically east-ward travelling pressure differential in the upper levels and having profound influence on ground weather especially during the initial monsoon phase, later this week will act to increase the intensity of the southwest monsoon over the north Arabian Sea.
Projections by India Meteorological Department (IMD) as do those by global counterparts also indicate a substantive monsoon surge, which is expected to occur along the southeast Arabian Sea, nearly replicating a replicating a strong monsoon onset phase.
But this would unfold after the Arabian Sea storm dies a natural death, mostly in the Gulf of Eden, as latest model projections suggest.
Source: The Hindu Business Line