The well-marked low pressure over west-central and adjoining south and east-central Arabian Sea has concentrated into a depression.

At 5.30 am, it lay centred 1,400 km west-southwest of Mumbai and 940 km east-southeast of Salalah, Oman.

FURTHER INTENSIFICATION

An India Met Department update this morning said it would intensify another round into a deep depression by tomorrow (Sunday).

The depression would initially move west-northwest towards south Oman and adjoining Yemen, the Met said in its first assessment of its possible track.

But global models differ, with some continuing to suggest that the storm would head east mid-course towards the Sindh (Pakistan) and northwest Gujarat (India) coasts.

In any case, the system is likely to be declared a cyclonic storm by Monday, with the tag ‘Nilofar,’ a name contributed by Pakistan.

PROJECTED LANDFALL

The US Naval Observatory said this morning that the system will remain largely stationary during the next 24 hours after which it will resume gathering strength.

During the phase, it will briefly swerve to the northeast before resuming the west-northwest track towards south Oman and adjoining Yemen.

A few models see the prospective cyclone making landfall where it is currently headed to, but others are of the view that the cyclone will stay for longer in the sea.

According to them, the cyclone would approach and even graze the coast of Oman before coming under the influence of a passing westerly system.

WESTERLY INFLUENCE

Originating farther west-northwest in the Mediterranean, the western disturbance would head for Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

The cyclone would latch on to the underbelly of the westerly system before being jettisoned over the Sindh and adjoining northwest Gujarat coast, say these models.

They estimate that it would grow to a very severe cyclone ahead of landfall, on a par with cyclone Hudhud that hit India’s east coast 12 days ago.

This is the second cyclone to form in the Arabian Sea this year after ‘Nanauk’ that coincided with the onset of the southwest monsoon earlier in June.

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