Is Another Cyclone in Bay of Bengal going to happen immediately? After Vardah is Marudah aiming for Chennai? A lot of worried messages from the citizens of Chennai who are still yet to recover from the effects of Cyclone Vardah which devastated the city. Thanks to the WhatsApp warriors we are forced to make this post and hope this brings a semblance of calm to the worried and panicking citizens of Chennai.
Now let us see a couple of charts to understand how situation was during Cyclone Vardah & what is expected off for the next couple of weeks or so. Unfortunately the charts could look like Greek & Latin to many but we have tried to infer it in a simple way so that understanding becomes less difficult.
Cyclone Vardah was triggered by an active Kelvin wave and aided by an active phase of MJO as one can observe from the OLR anomaly charts between 30th Nov. & 16th Dec. One can see the active conditions slowly move towards Maritime Continent and is subsequently expected to prevail over the West Pacific. Normally MJO is a West to East moving Tropical Variability with a passive phase more often than not following an active phase. One can also see during the next couple of weeks almost all the tropical waves / instability showing suppressed phase over North Indian Ocean.
The next chart as well confirms how possibly there could be a complete lack of tropical wave activity over North Indian Ocean with the active conditions moving further east towards Maritime Continent / West Pacific. Another important point to be considered as well is the starting of the active cycle for Southern Hemisphere which could mean any tropical wave / instability could slowly start supporting cyclogenesis in the South Indian Ocean as compared to the North Indian Ocean.
If one were to look at the current conditions there is a “Trough of Low” near the coast of Thailand pretty much in a similar location as Cyclone Vardah. The WhatsApp warriors have been insistent on using the current Trough of Low as a potential Cyclogenesis opportunity fueling the panic as IMD has also confirmed the Trough of Low though they are yet to mention anything about the development & intensification of this “Trough of Low”. Models are not showing any development / intensification as well with some models intensifying it to a marginal tropical disturbance possibly as a Low Pressure Area off the coast of Sri Lanka giving some rains to coastal Tamil Nadu.
In the past 50 years or so only on a couple of occasions possibly two cyclones have formed at very similar locations taken very similar paths and made landfalls close by within a couple of weeks time. 1966 when Chennai was hit by two cyclones within a month and 1999 when Odisha super cyclone happened. May be after seeing this post the WhatsApp warriors should pick up the IMD cyclone tracks to say when Chennai was hit by back to back cyclones it formed at a location very close to where Vardah formed so next cyclone will form surely from the current Trough of Low
Take a Walk WhatsApp warriors you will never succeed in spreading panic about the unlikely cyclone that is going to hit Chennai again soon.
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