Weather Prospects for New Year Holiday Season 2014!

Posted Saturday 27th Dec 2014

December 27 recorded minimum temperature of 18.5 C, the lowest recorded after December 6th! In between the minimum temperature went upto 24.3C mainly on account of the UAC in the Arabian Sea South west of Goa, and then hovered around 22-23C for a number of days before the present cool weather started to set in.

December 26 saw the maximum temperature come down to 30.6C from the usual 32-33C.

Thus the weather Goa is enjoying right now, is pleasant and it is expected to stay that way for some time.

As explained in detail in this post at the weather blog Vagaries of Weather, Jet Streams are expected to dip southwards towards Gujarat / Sindh and the Low BB15 in Bay of Bengal is expected to move N/NE away from the TN Coast.

Thus current pleasant nights and not so hot days are expected to continue for some more time.

So enjoy your Nights and Days in Goa! Season's Greetings and Happy New Year to all!!

Weather Prospects for Goa River Marathon 2014 - Less than ideal?

Update 2 Posted December 13, 2014)

Race Day December 14 at 6 am is expected to be cool at 20-21 C with humidity around 90% RH. Skies will be partly clouded but mostly clear. No rains are expected!

Update 1(Posted December 12, 2014, 9 pm):

Goa experienced heavy rains overnight on December 11, accompanied by thunder and lightening. The rains which commenced around 10.30 pm on Dec 11th continued till around 0730 hrs on Dec 12. Panjim recorded 32.3 mm, while Vagaries Goa rain Gauge at Margao recorded 52 mm during the same period.

This brought down the day's high on 12th to just 28.5C, 4C below normal. But the day's low still measured 22C with humidity of 95%RH at 0830 hrs.

Widespread rains are reported all over Goa at the time of this update, with Margao recording 5 mm till 2100 hrs on 12th.

The cloud cover is expected to decrease over Goa as per GFS models and concentrate south of Goa from December 13th evening onward.

If this indeed happens, the Race Day morning on December 14th could see some cool weather!

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The Goa River Marathon (GRM) 2014 is scheduled on December 14, 2014 at the port town of Vasco da Gama. Around 1400 participants are going to line up early in the morning at 0600 hrs for Half Marathon, 10K and 5K walk/ runs!

And the question that is uppermost on everyone's mind is if the weather going to be favourable to bring out the best from their months of training or if it's going to play a spoilsport with above normal temperature and high humidity on the race day and worse if it's going to rain!

The temperature trend over the last few days seems to indicate that things are not improving in terms of rising minimum temperatures early in the day and % humidity in 90s. Daily temperature variation at Panjim can be checked here and is reproduced below for December till 11th:

On December 11, 2014 the minimum temperature recorded at Panjim (IMD) was 24.3C with RH of 96%! This is +3 C above normal and a whopping +6 C recorded during traing runs on December 6! The minimum temperatures have been climbing steadily since December 6 and mornings have become warm and humid, with runners having to reduce their pace and resort to frequent hydration!
The record of highest minimum temperature at 25C recorded on December 20, 2007 is in danger of breaking.

A shower or two on race day in such conditions, is bound to upset the calculations of even the casual runners.

IMD Goa website forecasts generally cloudy skies with temperature range between 32 C - 22 C and possibility of rain.

However, GFS forecasting system indicates that things may not get worse from here, and in fact may improve a bit by December 14th morning.

The GFS based COLA/NCEP Meteogram for Goa indicates no rains throughout the week, but mid level clouds may persist till 15th. Humidity is predicted to remain around 90% in the early mornings and minimum temperatures between 20- 23C.

The current weather conditions are mostly a result of the trough of low at mean sea level over southwest Bay of Bengal off Sri Lanka and Tamilnadu coast and the trough in easterlies extending from Comorin area to southwest Madhya Pradesh across Coastal Karnataka

This has resulted in convective low and medium clouds over most of the peninsular India and rains in Kerala, adjoining TN, Coastal AP and parts of Karnataka.

 

 

Visit this page again on Saturday December 13 for an update on the forecast for the race day.


 

Hot Days, Cool Nights in Goa in November 2014 - Compared to October 2014

November 2014 turned out to be a topsy-turvy month for Goa, weather wise!

Rainfall measuring 12.6 mm was recorded in Margao in 24 hrs from 0830 hrs on Nov 14 to 0830 hrs on Nov 15. This brought down the day temperatures suddenly to 29.8C from the usual 34 C!

The Daily Temperature Chart indicates the temperature trend for November.

The salient features were as follows:

Thus the days in the second half of November were hotter than the days in the first half of the month, but the nights turned cooler in the second half than in the first half!

But the surprising trend was that the average day temperatures in November 2014 at 33.53C was almost one degree Celcius hotter than that in October 2014 at 32.63C!

However the average night temperature in November 2014 at 21.69C was almost two degrees Celcius cooler than that in October 2014 at 23.83C!

According to NOAA report quoted by Times of India in it's edition of December 1, 2014 this October was the hottest October on record Globally!

Now would you agree with that if you were living in Goa? You decide!!