Severe cyclone Ockhi appeared set to fizzle out on Tuesday evening as it approached the South Gujarat coast, with its flanks exposed due to the adverse environment closer to land.
The cooler sea surface and the vertical wind shear (sudden change in strength and direction of winds with height) triggered by the prevailing western disturbance hastened Ockhi’s end.
The India Met Department (IMD) said the system could dissipate over the waters itself, which a few global models had suspected earlier.
Ockhi’s approach also set off hailstorms over parts of western Maharashtra, a rare phenomenon for this time of the year. This is attributed to the phenomenon of temperature inversion when warm, moist air passes over a cool surface.
Action shifted to the other side of the peninsula, with the well-marked low-pressure area over South-East Bay of Bengal expected to become a depression by Wednesday morning and a deep depression by Friday.
The IMD said in its evening forecast on Tuesday that the deep depression would move towards North Tamil Nadu and South Andhra Pradesh coast initially and North Andhra Pradesh coast later.
The possibility of its strengthening to a tropical cyclone is being discounted by most models for the same reason as why Ockhi got choked on the home stretch — the western disturbance.