A couple of named tropical storms in the North-West Pacific and the South China Sea are set to churn the Bay of Bengal over the weekend, with a cyclonic circulation rolling right into its neighbourhood.

Over the next four-five days, it would move west-south-west and merge into the South Andaman Sea and adjoining South-East Bay of Bengal and set up a low-pressure area. The two storms raging over the waters to the East are tropical depression Kai-Tak and tropical storm Tembin , with the first located to the south-east of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on Thursday, while the second is travelling in from the Philippines.

Kai-Tak is located over the South China Sea and is inching closer to the East Coast of Malaysia, which would later travel further south-west to enter the South Andaman Sea and adjoining South-East Bay of Bengal.

The ‘low’ forming here is shown travelling straight towards the North-East coast of Sri Lanka and adjoining South-East Tamil Nadu. It would likely take a detour around the island of Sri Lanka later, with a remnant entering the South-East Arabian Sea in a more or less a similar track plotted by its predecessor ‘low’ that went on to become a very severe cyclone, Ockhi.

But no such development is indicated this time round, with a weather tracker of the US Climate Prediction Centre merely forecasting an year-end wet spell for coastal Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, coastal Kerala and parts of Lakshadweep.

The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, too, plots a similar track for the ‘low’ even as it trains focus on tropical storm Tembin , which would have become a typhoon before hitting the Vietnam coast.

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