Kolkata: A second cyclone is likely to make landfall on the Andhra Pradesh coast on Monday, less than a week after Cyclone Arnab hit the same coastline. It is predicted to hit land at some point between Chennai and Vijayawada, travel through Andhra and head towards Hyderabad. It started brewing as a well-marked low-pressure area over South Andaman Sea and Andaman & Nicobar Islands and moved west-northwestwards and lay over Southeast Bay of Bengal on Saturday morning.According to a bulletin issued by the Regional Meteorological Centre, it moved west-northwestwards and concentrated into a depression late on Saturday. “Thereafter, it is very likely to intensify further into a cyclonic storm during the subsequent 24 hours, move west-northwestwards and reach over west-central Bay of Bengal near Andhra Pradesh coast around the evening of Nov 2,” said the bulletin. Once it forms, it will be called Cyclone Murasu.So far, the impact on Bengal is predicted to be ‘negligible’. “It would be even less than what Arnab had triggered. We expect some clouds and light, sporadic rain, though,” said RMC weather scientist Sourish Bandyopadhyay.Once this system successfully intensifies into a named cyclonic storm, it will take the next designation from the regional WMO/ESCAP naming list for the North Indian Ocean, which is Murasu (a name proposed by India).On the morning of Oct 28, Cyclone Arnab hit land between Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam with a maximum wind speed of 110-115 kmph, gusting to 140 kmph during the forenoon of Wednesday, more than 700 km from Kolkata.
