After Tauktae, IMD warns of cyclone in Bay of Bengal

NEW DELHI: After Tauktae, India could see another cyclone next week, this time in the Bay of Bengal region. A low-pressure area is likely to form around May 23 that might intensify into a depression and a cyclone, India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned.

Sunitha Devi, who monitors cyclones at IMD, said a bulletin to this effect has been released, but a forecast will be made only after there is more clarity.

Devi said the atmospheric and oceanic conditions in the Bay of Bengal are also favourable for cyclone formation just like in the Arabian Sea, with the sea surface temperature in the former being around 31 degrees Celsius, which is above normal by 1-2 degrees Celsius.

Earlier on May 13, Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre in Delhi had talked about the “low probability” of cyclone formation “over east central and adjoining northeast Bay of Bengal” towards the latter half of the second week following it.

But Mahesh Palawat, vice president, climate change and meteorology at Skymet Weather (a private company that’s into weather forecasting) thinks India may be spared another devastation. “A low-pressure area is developing. It may intensify into a depression or a cyclone. As of now, the models are indicating that it is likely to move towards Myanmar and not towards the Indian coast,” he said.

If a cyclone indeed forms, it will be called Yaas, a name coined by Oman.

Meanwhile, Tauktae has weakened to a cyclonic storm after ravaging the west coast. On Tuesday afternoon, it lay centred over Saurashtra, 190 km southsouthwest of Dessa and 105 km south southwest of Ahmedabad. Its intensity at the centre, or the ‘eye’, remained between 75 and 85 km/hr, with gusts of up to 95 km/hr. When it had made landfall on Monday night, the intensity at the centre was between 160 and 170 km/hr with gusts of up to 190 km/hr.

But the weakened system is now likely to interact with an approaching western disturbance and cause widespread rain and thunderstorms over the western Himalayan region and adjoining plains of northwest India between May 19 and 20. There will be isolated heavy to over heavy rain over Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Chandigarh, Delhi and West Uttar Pradesh on May 19, and heavy rain at isolated places in Punjab on the same day. Isolated extremely heavy showers are also likely over Uttarakhand on May 19.