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India Met Department has declared a cyclone formation alert for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and a pre-cyclone watch for Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts on Tuesday.
The Met located the causative monsoon depression to 250 km east-southeast of Long Island, a small island in the Andamans Islands.
Huge distanceThe nearest point of reference for the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre was Bangkok, 630 km east-northeast of the depression.
It only helped indicate the huge distance that separates the system from any point on mainland India. It will take four-five days for it to reach the mainland as a cyclonic storm.
The cyclone is to be named after Hudhud, the national bird of Israel, and is an official entry to the list of cyclone names contributed by Oman.
Meanwhile, the Met expects the depression to move west-northwest and become a deep depression by Wednesday and a cyclonic storm the day after.
Cyclone intensityIt will have crossed the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and stepped out into the open waters of the Bay of Bengal from where it would head straight to the Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts.
It will have enough time and space to ramp up into a severe cyclone, or even a very severe one, according to international models.
The US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre upgraded to ‘medium’ the possibility of a ‘significant tropical cyclone’ spinning up in the Bay in the next 24 hours.
Successor cyclone?An experimental forecast made by a US-based tracker finds the distinct possibility of a second cyclonic storm in the Bay of Bengal towards the end of the month.
It sees the system taking shape yet again in the Andaman Islands and travelling along a mostly westward track towards north Andhra Pradesh-Chennai coasts by November 1. Meanwhile, model forecasts favour the building first cyclone of the northeast monsoon season to gather considerable strength before making a landfall over Odisha-Andhra Pradesh coasts.
The track being projected is very close to the one tracked by Super Cyclone Phailin around the same time last year. Phailin had crossed coast on October 12.
The Met has forecast isolated heavy rainfall for south interior Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Puducherry on Wednesday as the incumbent system in the Bay evolves further.
Weather over Andaman and Nicobar Islands may take a turn for the worse with the expected crossing of the cyclonic storm near the Long Island.
Gale-force winds have been forecast reaching 70- to 80 km/hr, and fishermen have been directed not to venture out into the sea for next two days.
Isolated heavy rainfall would continue to lash south interior Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.
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