The Hindu Business Line : US Navy alert on cyclone formation in Bay

Bangkok, April 27 The US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) has issued a cyclone formation alert in the Bay of Bengal even as the India Met Department announced that the prevailing low-pressure area has intensified into a depression on Sunday.

Formation of a significant tropical cyclone (now ‘numbered’ 95B) is possible within 390 nautical miles (722 km) off Chennai within the next 12 to 24 hours. Winds in the area were estimated to be 25-30 knots (46-55 kmph). Winds speeding to 64 kmph would warrant its classification as a cyclone.

Convective bands to the west of the system began wrapping into a consolidating low level circulation centre (nucleus of the system) on Sunday. Ample upper level ‘window’ effect will allow it to breathe freely and intensify in the process.

The low vertical wind shear will keep the towering cloud formation in good stead, affording it just the right environment to prosper. Once it attains the class-matching attributes, it will be named ‘Nargis’ as per the naming protocol applicable in the region. The system is currently headed north-northwest (with India’s southeast coast in sight) but is expected to recurve, head into the open Bay waters and race towards the Myanmar coast.

The India Met Department too quoted numerical weather predictions to present a similar outlook on Saturday. On Sunday, it said that the southeast Bay hosted a depression, expected to intensify further and move initially in a northwesterly direction. Here in Bangkok, the new model at the early warning system at the Asian Disaster

Preparedness Centre (ADPC) has effectively simulated the event unfolding in the Bay exactly along these lines.

The ADPC model captured the system initially cantering towards the southeast Indian coast, only to be coerced by a westerly steering current to send it back, packing into the central Bay. The warm waters and abundant moisture will fuel calibrated growth before the system bears down on the Myanmar coast around May 2.

The ADPC early warning system is being manned by Dr Jay Raman Potty and Dr P.V.S. Raja, climatologists, under the guidance of Dr U.C. Mohan, Professor at the Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, IIT-Delhi. The ADPC model had also successfully simulated severe tropical cyclone Sidr, the last reported major cyclone event in the Bay, right until its landfall over the Bangladesh coast, said Mr A.R. Subbiah, Director of the Climate Risk Management team.

The ADPC intends to further fine-tune the model and circulate its analysis and interpretations among a growing list of member-countries, some of which do not have the computing resources to do the same. Business Line was extended an exclusive invitation to visit the EWS facility located at downtown Bangkok.

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