Cyclone Brewing in Arabian Sea? A Low-Pressure Area Might Form By Tonight

A low-pressure area could form in Arabian Sea by tonight, that may eventually give gateway to the first post-monsoon cyclone. While it is too early for any concrete forecast, weather models are predicting that conditions are building up over the southeastern parts of the Arabian Sea of a cyclonic circulation.

Conditions are building up over the southeastern parts of the Arabian Sea, next to the equatorial region, private weather agency Skymetweather said, adding that “warm Indian Ocean on account of positive IOD and marginally favoured MJO, together may pop up a cyclonic disturbance shortly”.

“It is rather pre-mature to commit anything, other than a cyclonic circulation over the Southeast Arabian Sea around 15th October. This may shift over extreme South-Central parts of the ocean in the subsequent 72 hours and may shape up as low pressure area. Very low latitude and unfavourable environmental conditions do not suggest any fast pick up,” a Skymetweather’s report published on October 13 said.

Cited above, IOD or Indian Ocean Dipole refers to the difference in sea surface temperature between two areas (or poles, hence a dipole) – a western pole in the Arabian Sea (western Indian Ocean) and an eastern pole in the eastern Indian Ocean south of Indonesia, as mentioned in bom.gov.au.

MJO or Madden-Julian Oscillation, meanwhile, can be characterised as an eastward moving ‘pulse’ of cloud and rainfall near the equator that typically recurs every 30 to 60 days, bom.gov.au said.

As per very early predictions, under ideal conditions, this possible low-pressure area could soon escalate into a cyclone. The cyclone, if at all it forms, will be named ‘Tej’.

Skymetweather.com in the report published October 13 said that the conditions building up over Southeast Arabian Sea may shift over extreme South-Central parts of the ocean in 72 hours and may shape up as low pressure area.