Kyarr may retain supercyclone status till Monday evening; fresh buzz in Arabian Sea: IMD

Supercylone ‘Kyarr’ is having a whale of a time in the open waters over the East-Central Arabian Sea, racing in the West-North-West direction at a speed of 16 km/hr on Sunday night, generally towards the Oman coast.

As of 5.30 am on Monday, the supercyclone lay centred about 790 km West-South-West of Mumbai; 1,200 km East-North-East of Salalah (Oman); and 740 km East-South-East of Masirah (Oman).

IMD cyclone track

According to the IMD, which has been correctly predicting an Oman-ward track for 'Kyarr' right from the word go, it will likely continue to move West-North-West towards the Sultanate during the next five days.

Significantly, the IMD also assessed that ‘Kyarr’ will most likely maintain the intensity of a supercyclone until Monday evening before starting to gradually weaken thereafter.

Gale winds with speeds reaching 230-240 km/hr, gusting to as high as 265 km/hr are currently prevailing around the system centre over the East-Central and adjoining West-Central Arabian Sea.

These are likely to reduce by tomorrow (Tuesday) morning to 190-200 km/hr, gusting to 220 km/hr, and decreasing further to 110-120 km/hr and gusting to 130 km/hr for the next few days until Friday morning.

Meanwhile, back home, closer to the Kerala coast, the Arabian Sea is erupting again with a fresh low-pressure area likely to form in two days and the IMD signalling the prospects for its intensification.

Not to be outdone, the Bay of Bengal, too, will join the party during the subsequent two days with another low-pressure version of its own (by Saturday, November 2).

The Climate Prediction Centre of the US National Weather Service too agrees, and has yet again chosen to put India under notice with respect to implications from supercyclone ‘Kyarr’ and its successors.

While the US agency has come round to the IMD's view point that ‘Kyarr’ is indeed moving towards the Oman coast (as in the graphic below), it is hinting that that the supercyclone might re-curve just before reaching the Oman coast.

The weakening ‘Kyarr’ would be steered East-North-East towards the Karachi coast in Pakistan or North Gujarat coast by an entourage of the next western disturbance rushing in from the opposite direction.

The western disturbance travels often from West to East across Iran-Afghanistan-Pakistan into North-West India and would be able to force the Arabian Sea storm to retreat and tag on to itself on its journey to the East.

The outlook by a weather tracker of the US agency for the next four to eight days is instructive:

Forecast

Meanwhile, the IMD has forecast isolated rainfall/thunderstorms over parts of the central, eastern and western parts of the country until Tuesday. These would be at a few places across Marathwada, Vidarbha and Chhattisgarh.

The weather will be mainly dry in the next two days except over Maharashtra, where isolated to scattered rain and thunderstorms are likely. Mainly dry weather will prevail over parts of North-West India during the next five days.

An extended outlook from November 2 to 4 (Saturday to Monday) said that isolated thunderstorm activity is expected over Peninsular India, a period that coincides with the formation of a fresh 'low' over the Andaman Sea.

According to the US Climate Prediction Center, even this ‘low’ would be in a West-North-West direction becoming East-North-East, apparently under the influence of the western disturbance mentioned earlier.

This would most likely take the 'low' away from the larger East India coast (Tamil Nadu-Andhra Pradesh-Odisha) and guide it towards the Bengal/Bangladesh coast, according to this track.

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