As severe cyclone prepares to take U-turn from East-Central Arabian Sea and head towards the Gujarat coast for a landfall by Wednesday night, fresh churn is developing in the Bay of Bengal. A preparatory cyclonic circulation hung over the North Andaman Sea (South-East Bay) and adjoining Myanmar coast, which could settle as a low-pressure area over north Andaman Sea by Monday.
Depression in Bay
Under its influence, heavy rainfall is forecast at isolated places over the Andaman & Nicobar Islands during the next days and isolated heavy to very heavy falls for subsequent three days.
India Meteorological Department (IMD) projects it to move West-North-West and concentrate into a depression over the East-Central Bay, during subsequent two to three days. During this phase, it would intensify further as it continues to track to the North-West.
Movement of a batch of East-bound western disturbances over North and Central India around this time would have a major say on where the developing storm would head for landfall. In fact, the latest in the series of these disturbances will start affecting the plains of North-West India and Central India from Wednesday, just as the Bay storm would be gaining traction.
These disturbances would bring scattered to fairly widespread precipitation over the hills of North-West India and adjoining plains on Friday (November 8).
Likely storm track
These disturbances and their entourage of westerly to north-westerly winds are expected to moderate the smog and pollution levels in and around the National Capital Region.
The IMD has also said that the North Andhra Pradesh and South and Coastal Odisha may experience widespread rainfall with isolated heavy to very heavy falls from Saturday onwards.
Squally wind speeds of 40-50 km/hr gusting to 60 km/hr (on par with those associated with a depression) may prevail over these areas on Saturday and increase thereafter. This probably would settle the crucial question as to where the brewing storm in the Bay of Bengal is headed, though global models do not have complete consensus in the matter.
A majority of these models assess that the storm could be headed towards the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coasts, there are at least a couple that takes it direct towards Andhra Pradesh.
The following are the available forecast outlook. These are all early forecasts, and are subject to change.
Canadian Meteorological Centre
US Global Forecast System
US Navy Global Environmental Model
Japanese Meteorological Agency
The UK Met Office goes on to forecast a powerful cyclone in the making here:
Of the above models, only two -- the Canadian Meteorological Centre and the Japanese Meteorological Agency -- favour a track that differs from Odisha-Andhra Pradesh indicated by others.
A weather tracker of the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction sees the storm heading towards a more southerly direction to the Andhra Pradesh.
Severe cyclone Maha heads to Gujarat
Meanwhile, severe cyclone Maha was located over the East-Central Arabian Sea about 550 km West-South-West of Veraval (Gujarat) and 580 km West-South-West of Diu.
It is very likely to intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm, move West-North-West till Monday, re-curve and take a U-turn (to East-North-East) and start to weaken gradually from Tuesday.
It may cross the Gujarat coast between Diu and Dwarka as a severe cyclone with maximum sustained wind speeds of 100-110 km/hr gusting to 120 km/hr by Wednesday midnight or early Thursday morning. It has has forecast light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places over Saurashtra and Gujarat on Wednesday and Thursday.
Light to moderate rainfall is also forecast at most places with isolated heavy rainfall very likely over North Madhya Maharashtra and North Konkan, including Mumbai on these days.
Click here for the IMD's forecast for severe cyclone Maha