Cyclone Arnab was still moving towards the Andhra Pradesh coast on 27 October when weather models began to suggest that the Bay of Bengal could produce a second storm within days, Down To Earth reports. Forecasters caution that the second system is uncertain and has not been confirmed.
According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), Arnab intensified rapidly, its wind speed rising by 74 km/h in the 24 hours to the morning of 27 October, to a peak of 150-160 km/h gusting to 180 km/h. At 2.30 pm that day it lay about 140 km southeast of Kakinada and 170 km south of Visakhapatnam, moving west at 22 km/h. IMD expected it to cross the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, near Yanam, before noon on 28 October, as a very severe cyclonic storm with sustained winds of 125-135 km/h gusting to 150 km/h. The US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center put Arnab's winds much higher, at 115 knots (213 km/h) gusting to 140 knots (259 km/h).
A second low-pressure area over the southwest Bay of Bengal and coastal Tamil Nadu, reported by IMD on 26 October, had weakened by the next morning and could dissipate, the weather blog Vagaries of Weather told Down To Earth. The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts model, as shown on the Windy platform, had it moving around Arnab and crossing near the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha border on the evening of 28 October, but the same model had also predicted an earlier landfall for Arnab that did not happen.
Vagaries of Weather pointed to a different possibility: a fresh low-pressure area forming over the southeast Bay of Bengal shortly after Arnab and approaching the Odisha coast around 1-2 November. Several models, including IMD's Global Forecast System, the ECMWF model and the Bharat Forecasting System, showed it could develop into a cyclone.
IMD said Arnab was being tracked continuously by the Doppler weather radar at Visakhapatnam. Its further updates are expected to make clearer both the storm's path and whether a second system will form. The report is by Akshit Sangomla.
Photo: Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA (Cyclone Mala over the Bay of Bengal, 2006) / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Source: Down To Earth
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