After Nisha

--South Asia:

The storm is over and what lingers behind is tropical moisture that has wafted over most of peninsular India giving rise to scattered thunderstorms as of Saturday. The old low-level core of Nisha has settled as a much-weakened whirl over the eastern Arabian Sea.

The next few days of weather will lack the drama of the last week and its flooding, cyclonic rains and winds. But there will be an unusual bent to it inasmuch as tropical moisture will run unusually far northward over the western Subcontinent. The hit-or-miss showers and thunderstorms that have already arisen over Maharashtra will reach Gujarat and even southern Sindh. I would not rule out a shower at Karachi sometime within the next three to four days.

Well, there is already talk of the next depression or cyclone over the Bay of Bengal on or after the middle of next week. My take is "I do not know yet". I will wait to see consistency in numerical model runs; barring this, I will decline to forecast a Bay cyclone. Even without a well-marked tropical low, the setting does seem to favor new outbreaks of rain, but nothing like the one now ended.

--The rain unleashed by the big, lumbering weather system the became Tropical Cyclone Nisha has triggered tragic flooding. The statistics themselves were staggering. The storm's four-day outburst of rain poured 57.9 cm/22.8 inches upon Chennai-Minambakkam. And rains ahead of Nisha swelled the amount to 59.6 cm/26.6 inches, or more than two fold the normal monthly rainfall--all of this within about one week. And, by my reckoning, rainfall at Cuddalore since last Friday has reached 33 inches (about 84 cm), give or take.

--South West Asia:

A sharp short-wave trough is rippling east over Iraq as I write (1800 UTC on Saturday). Thunderstorms which have broken out ahead of the trough are going to get squeezed against the Zagros Mountains to soak an area of western (or southwestern) Iran including the Iraq border.

During the next few days, the trough crossing Iraq will broaden over Iran with southward thrust over the nearby Khaleej of Arabia. The cool core of the trough aloft will destabilize the atmosphere enough for a few showers and thunderstorms between Qatar and northeast UAE (with nearby northern Oman.

--South America:

Since my Thursday post, thunderstorms have shattered the heat wave over the northern half of Argentina. And they have unleashed some welcome rain (86 mm at Laboulaye). This is the end of the heat for at least several days, although it may begin its return next week over Patagonia.

--Australia:

Highest rainfall out of eastern Australia since last Thursday is from inland northern New South Wales. For one, there is Tamworth with 20 cm. Thunderstorms, some with high winds, broke out widely over inland eastern Australia Friday and Friday night, local time.