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The low-pressure area over the Andaman Sea underwent steady intensification through yesterday and became tropical cyclone 'Gaja' this morning over the open waters of the Bay of Bengal.
India Met Department (IMD) has located the cyclone to over East-Central and adjoining West-Central and South-East Bay, 400 km west-northwest of Port Blair (Andaman Islands), 990 km north-east of Chennai (Tamil Nadu) and 1,050 km east-south-east of Nellore (Andhra Pradesh).
Meanwhile, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts has pointed to the possibility of another storm developing over the Gulf of Thailand (just across Andaman Sea) by November 20.
Long awaited rain
Cyclone Gaja is expected intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm by tomorrow and move west-northwestwards during the subsequent day and half. Later, it would change direction to west-south-westwards towards the North Tamil Nadu-South Andhra Pradesh coasts by Wednesday. However, while moving west-southwestwards, it is also likely to weaken gradually and cross the North Tamil Nadu-South Andhra Pradesh coasts as a cyclone during by Thursday forenoon.
Squally wind speed reaching 45-55 km/hr gusting to 65 km/hr would commence along and off North Tamil Nadu-South Andhra Pradesh coasts from Wednesday morning.
The IMD has forecast rainfall at many places over North Coastal Tamil Nadu and adjoining South Coastal Andhra Pradesh from Wednesday evening with heavy falls at isolated places. Ahead of this, the cyclone would bring rainfall at most places over Andaman & Nicobar Islands with heavy rainfall at isolated places today, before losing intensity thereafter.
Squally winds reaching 55 km/hr gusting to 65 km/hr have been forecast over and around Andaman Islands and the North Andaman Sea into tonight.
Landfall area contested
Gale winds with speeds reaching 70 km/hr and gusting to 80 km/hr prevails over East-Central and adjoining West-Central and South-East Bay, half-way into the Tamil Nadu and Andhra coasts. These would scale up to 100 km/hr gusting to 110 km/hr over West-Central and adjoining South-West Bay (closer to the above coasts) from tomorrow morning.
Cyclone Gaja is expected to bring rainbands into North Tamil Nadu as per the IMD outlook, though, of an array of global models surveyed, only a couple tended to agree more or less with this prognosis.
Among these are the US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, which sees the severe cyclone weakening a round before barrelling over Chennai and neighbourhood on Thursday afternoon. The US Navy Global Environmental Model too seemed to concur, taking the storm towards Chennai as per the 180-hour forecast based on initial conditions as available yesterday.
But a group of other models, including the Canadian Meteorological Centre, the Global Forecasts System of the US National Centres for Environmental Prediction, the Japanese Meteorological Agency, and the UK Met Centre sees the cyclone heading either just South of Chennai or deeper South.
Lately, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts too seems to have agreed with a landfall over a South Tamil Nadu location.
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