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Cyclone Luban used a brief stopover mid-ocean to ramp up in strength to become a severe cyclone in the West-Central Arabian Sea on Tuesday while the Bay of Bengal produced its own cyclone, named ‘Titli’, in its West-Central basin.
Cyclone ‘Titli’ too is forecast to strengthen as a severe cyclone by Wednesday and hit the Odisha and adjoining North Andhra Pradesh coasts between Gopalpur and Kalingapatnam on Thursday.
Threat for east coast
Additionally, the India Met Department (IMD) said that severe cyclone Luban, now approaching the Yemen and South Oman coasts for a landfall over the next four days, may intensify further.
The severe cyclone is proceeding at a leisurely pace for the landfall and has enough time to strengthen into a very severe cyclone. Some of the global models had assessed earlier that ‘Luban’ had everything going for it to become a class-topping super cyclone.
It is very rarely that the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal get to host cyclonic storms of this strength. While severe cyclone Luban will not affect any coast of India, severe cyclone ‘Titli’ could blast right into its East Coast.
According to the IMD, after landfall over the Odisha and adjoining North Andhra Pradesh coasts, ‘Titli’ will recurve to the north-east across Coastal Odisha towards the plains of Bengal and weaken gradually.
High winds, heavy rain
High winds and heavy to very heavy rainfall with extremely heavy falls have been forecast over Odisha, the North Andhra Pradesh coast, plains of Bengal and the North-Eastern States over the next couple of days.
Heavy to very heavy rain and extremely heavy falls have been forecast over Odisha on Wednesday, while heavy to very heavy rains are seen over the plains of Bengal and heavy rain over Mizoram and Tripura.
Squally winds with speeds reaching up to 90 km/hr and gusting to 100 km/hr are likely over the deep seas of the Central and adjoining North Bay of Bengal the same day.
Wind speeds could be up to 90 km/hr gusting to 100 km/hr along and off South Odisha and adjoining coastal areas of North Andhra Pradesh; and 65 km/hr gusting to 75 km/hr along and off the North Odisha and Bengal coasts.
Lull expected
‘Very rough’ to ‘very high’ (wave heights of 20 to 46 ft and above) conditions may prevail over these areas. Fishermen are advised not to venture out.
On Thursday, the day of landfall for severe cyclone Titli, heavy to very heavy rain with extremely heavy falls is forecast over Odisha; heavy to very heavy rain for the plains of Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura; and heavy rain over the hills of Bengal, Sikkim, North Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal may fall into a lull after expending a lot of energy in hosting the powerful cyclones. It could take the next 10 to 12 days for them to settle down.
The wait for the north-easterly winds to establish over the seas and the South Peninsula could last that much longer, according to model forecasts.
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