The curious case of Southwest Monsoon Dichotomy

COMK Analysis
Reading Time: 3 minutes

This Southwest Monsoon season has seen some extreme events already.  We had the case of extreme downpour in parts of Madhya Pradesh when places like Jabalpur saw flooding a few weeks back, now we are seeing some extreme rains Maharashtra around Nasik resulting in an overflowing Godavari.  In all this one thing stands out is the Dichotomy showing up along the West Coast in Southern Peninsular India.  While Southwest Monsoon has been active to vigorous over Konkan Coast, north of Goa, down South it is pretty much sleeping like Kumbakarna that needs a wake up. Weather_Update_1

The precipitation anomaly chart created by Climate Prediction Centre, NOAA for the last 30 days pretty much sums up the situation.  Goa sort of acting as the “Great Wall of Southwest Monsoon” with all the excess rains falling to the North while places to the South has seen lesser than normal rainfall all the way until South Kerala.  The poor rainfall pattern of Coastal Karnataka & the districts of Wayanad, Kodagu etc is reflecting in the inflows into Kaveri & Kabini basin which is reflecting in the dam levels of Karnataka

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Except for Harangi which is the smallest of all dams in Karnataka is the only one in South Karnataka to see higher storage compared to last year.  Ghataprabha, Almatti & Narayanapura which are have higher storage than last year are all in North Karnataka & owe most of their inflows to the rains in the Maharashtra region as well.  For the sake of the farmers of Karnataka & Tamil Nadu we hope Southwest Monsoon picks up pace in South Karnataka & Kerala as well soon.

Weather_Update

In the meanwhile West Coast is likely to see another day of heavy to very heavy rains in places around Mahableshwar & Nasik.  Mahableswar which has already recorded 90 cms of rains in 5 days or so of which 82 cms has fallen in the last 3 days could possibly see a third straight day of rains in excess of 30 cms.  Nasik & surrounding areas could see rains continue till tonight possibly with respite expected possibly from tomorrow.  Parts of Vidharba, Chhattisgarh, Telengana & Coastal AP are also likely to see heavy rains in many places under the influence of the Monsoon surge aided by the Low Pressure in Bay & Upper Air Cyclonic Circulation in Central India.