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Vinson Kurian
Tamil Nadu, particularly rain-deficit Chennai and neighbourhood, may well have a tryst with the low-pressure area over south-west Bay of Bengal as it intensifies into a depression later this week.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday that the ‘low’ was located over the Equatorial Indian Ocean and adjoining central parts of south Bay of Bengal. Global models have traced it to 781 km east-south-east of Colombo.
Depression outlook
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre has already tagged the system as ‘94B’, but said it did not expect any significant development on Tuesday. As if on cue, the IMD said that the system was expected to become ‘more marked’ by Wednesday. It could intensify further into a depression by Thursday and move towards North Tamil Nadu and adjoining South Andhra Pradesh coast.
Wind-field projections by the IMD even suggest that the depression could further intensify into a tropical cyclone and head towards the North Tamil Nadu coast to make landfall around December 15 and 16.
And, this would be exactly a month after the severe cyclone ‘Gaja’ bypassed Chennai, taking a more southerly course to ravage Tamil Nadu’s delta districts. Compared to their morning updates, more global models now favour the system heading towards North Tamil Nadu-South Andhra Pradesh coast with the odd one (Canadian Met Centre) predicting an away-going cyclone.
Model consensus
According to the latter, the system might just graze the Odisha coast but suddenly steer to the East, pick up strength, and become a powerful cyclone eyeing the Bangladesh coast.
Meanwhile, assuming that it eyes the North Tamil Nadu-South Coastal Andhra Pradesh, the rains it heralds would be a welcome relief for the northern parts of Tamil Nadu and adjoining South Interior Karnataka and Rayalaseema.
This is significant, coming as it does towards the fag end of a largely indifferent North-East monsoon season that has left worrisome rain deficits in a number of districts in Tamil Nadu and neighbouring Met subdivisions.
In its outlook for the next few days, the IMD said that winds speeding up to 50 km/hr and gusting to 60 km/hr (just short of cyclonic strength) would prevail over South-West Bay and Equatorial Indian Ocean from Wednesday itself.
A similar forecast would be valid for Friday as well, with the IMD warning fishermen against venturing out to these waters on both days. There is, however, no warning for Friday (December 14), at least as of Monday.
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