A well-marked low-pressure area has formed over the southeast Bay of Bengal. India’s Meteorological Department said on 31 October that it expects the system to strengthen. The forecast calls for a depression within hours, then a cyclonic storm within a day. This comes less than a week after Cyclone Arnab struck the same coastline. The new system is moving west-northwest. Forecasters expect it to reach the Andhra Pradesh coast. It should carry winds of 80 to 90 kilometres an hour. Gusts could reach 100 kilometres an hour.
If the storm strengthens to cyclone status, it will be named Murasu. It is milder than Arnab, which made landfall on 28 October with winds near 150 kilometres an hour. The weather department expects Murasu to reach the coast by the evening of 2 November. But the department’s director general told the Press Trust of India that landfall could slip to the morning of 3 November instead. Officials have not reconciled the two timings publicly. Coastal residents are being told to prepare for either date.
Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam, part of the union territory of Puducherry, face isolated extremely heavy rainfall on 2 November. Very heavy rain is expected to follow the next day. Rayalaseema, the drier interior region of the state, also faces very heavy rain on both days. Squally winds of up to 60 kilometres an hour are expected along the Andhra Pradesh, north Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts from the evening of 1 November. Fishermen in those stretches have already been warned to stay ashore.
A second storm within a week
The south Odisha coast will see squally weather from the evening of 2 November. Winds there should reach 50 to 60 kilometres an hour. Gusts could touch 70 kilometres an hour from early on 3 November. A heavy rainfall alert covers 3 and 4 November. Conditions should ease once the storm slows to about 60 kilometres an hour by the morning of 4 November. That slowdown would give relief crews a narrower but clearer window to act.
These back-to-back storms add pressure on a coastline still clearing up after Arnab. That earlier storm flattened paddy ready for harvest in Odisha and Andhra Pradesh. Standing water from Arnab has not fully drained in several districts. Agriculture officials warn that further rain risks spoiling grain already lying in flooded fields. It could also delay the harvest even further. Rice makes up a large share of the kharif crop in both states. Losses at this stage of the season are hard to recover.
Fishing communities along the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts have again been told to stay off the water. That precaution costs daily-wage fishing households real income every time a storm forms during the season. The Bay of Bengal typically produces most of its cyclones between October and December. Sea surface temperatures stay warm enough then to fuel rapid intensification. This year’s season has already produced storms in quick succession, leaving little time for coastal districts to recover between them.
Relief teams move in ahead of landfall
State disaster management authorities in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha have begun moving relief material and personnel to coastal districts. They are following the same evacuation routes used ahead of Arnab’s landfall. Local administrations plan to open shelters in low-lying blocks once the storm nears. They will also coordinate with fishing cooperatives on when boats can safely return to sea. For coastal communities, this routine has grown familiar over a cyclone season that still has weeks left to run.
