This story is from June 12, 2019

Cyclone Vayu delays arrival of monsoon in Bengal

Cyclone Vayu, which is set to strike the Gujarat coast on June 13, has weakened the ‘Bay branch’ of the monsoon current halting the onset of rains in Kolkata and south Bengal. Conditions will not turn favourable for the monsoon currents to start moving again till the cyclone passes away, say meteorologists.
Cyclone Vayu delays arrival of monsoon in Bengal
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KOLKATA: Cyclone Vayu, which is set to strike the Gujarat coast on June 13, has weakened the ‘Bay branch’ of the monsoon current halting the onset of rains in Kolkata and south Bengal. Conditions will not turn favourable for the monsoon currents to start moving again till the cyclone passes away, say meteorologists. It could remain hot and humid across south Bengal for the next 48 hours even as a heatwave warning has been sounded in five districts.
Kolkata recorded a maximum temperature of 36.6 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.
Moving parallel to the west coast, Vayu is expected to strike the Gujarat coast between Porbandar and Mahuva. Set to hit the coast with a wind speed 110-120 km/hr, it has already sucked in winds from the arm of monsoon current that stretches across the breadth of the country between the west and east coasts and touches Bengal. “The Bay (of Bengal) branch of the monsoon current, that needs to get active for the rains to hit Bengal, has been affected by the cyclone. Vayu has pulled in winds from the current rendering it weak and immobile. In fact, monsoon currents as a whole have got stalled due to Vayu after it reached Kerala on June 8,” said deputy director-general of meteorology Sanjib Bandopadhyay.
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He added that Vayu has further delayed the onset of monsoon after it reached Kerala seven days behind schedule. “Instead of June 1, which is the scheduled date for its arrival in Kerala, monsoon reached Kerala on June 8. The monsoon arms, including the Bay branch, are not likely to revive till Vayu passes away which could be several days. Till then, south Bengal may remain hot and humid. While the maximum temperature in coastal districts may remain 2-3 degrees above normal, the western districts will have heatwave like conditions,” added Bandopadhyay. A heatwave warning has already been sounded in Purulia, Bankura, Birbhum, West Midnapore and Jhargram.
Meanwhile, a new observatory was inaugurated on Tuesday at Salt Lake that will help augment data on weather, particularly rain. It is housed at the Positional Astronomy Centre and is the fourth weather centre in Kolkata. “We have observed that in the pre-monsoon season, the volume of rain often varies a great deal between various parts of the city. If it rains heavily on the eastern fringes of the city, south or north Kolkata tends to remain dry and vice-versa. This centre will now record the volume of rain in Salt Lake and the eastern parts of the city and help to provide a better picture,” explained Bandopadhyay.

Apart from rain, the observatory will record all the basic weather data that are clocked at Alipore and Dum Dum. “This is a full-fledged observatory. For forecast to be accurate, the volume of data needs to be big. So, figures collected from this new centre will boost our database and help improve accuracy,” said Bandopadhyay. But the representative figures of rain and temperature for Kolkata will continue to be those recorded at Alipore.
It could take several days for the Bay branch, along with other monsoon branches, to gather steam once Vayu passes away, said Regional Meteorological Centre director G K Das. “The same thing had happened after cyclone Fani struck Odisha last month. Once a cyclone sucks out moisture and wind, it may take up to a week for the currents to rejuvenate,” said Das.
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