Tropical cyclone ‘Kyant’ in the East-central Bay of Bengal was located 680 km south-southeast of Gopalpur (Odisha) and 815 km east of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) on Tuesday afternoon.

The India Met Department (IMD) has now extended squally wind warning to Andhra Pradesh coast in view of the approach of the cyclone. The Bengal coast has since been taken out of the scope for the alert.

Squally winds

An IMD weather outlook for Thursday said that squally winds speeding up to 45-55 km/hr and gusting to 65 km/hr would lash the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts from Thursday.

Fishermen have been advised not to venture out into the sea along and off Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts.

On Friday, heavy rain has been forecast at isolated places of Coastal Andhra Pradesh even as the squally wind alert and warning for fishermen would stay along the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts.

A similar forecast would be valid for Saturday as well, when cyclone Kyant is expected to be closing in on for a landfall.

The IMD assesses that Kyant would be buffeted by winds speeding up to 80-90 km/hr and gusting to 100 km/hr by then, and located close to Visakhapatnam.

Fresh storm?

Some global forecasts hinted at the possibility of the cyclonic storm dipping further South on the Andhra Pradesh coast towards Prakasam/Nellore districts over the next four days.

Prior to achieving the landfall, it would have weakened by a round, these forecasts said. This phase may also see a fresh storm being generated in the East Bay of Bengal.

The North-East monsoon would likely set in during this phase as cyclone Kyant brings with it an easterly to north-easterly regime of winds to bear along the coast.

But the rainfall outlook for the South Peninsula during this week and the week that follows is less than normal, going by a US Climate Prediction Centre update.

Busy bay

A storm tracker featured by the US agency has said that the Bay of Bengal would remain busy during the first two weeks of November.

A couple of weather systems of storm strength are forecast during this period, but the rains are seen mostly spread out into the the waters.

Over land, the gains would be limited to the coastal areas of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. This is so because the weather systems would not be able to penetrate into the hinterland.

Meanwhile, Busan, the South Korea-based Asia-Pacific Climate Centre, has said that the South Peninsula would get mostly normal rainfall during November and December.

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