The depression over South-West Bay of Bengal located 120 km to the south-southeast of Chennai on Tuesday will keep moving along the north Tamil Nadu and south coastal Andhra Pradesh coasts.
The system will align itself closest to the Chennai coast on Wednesday morning, according to a forecast by the India Met Department.
Squally winds reaching speeds of 55-65 km/hr gusting to 70 km/hr may prevail along north coastal Tamil Nadu and south coastal Andhra Pradesh.
Fishermen have been advised not to venture out into the sea from the Tamil Nadu and south coastal Andhra Pradesh coasts.
The Met said that the intensification of the depression into a deep depression will be delayed by a day to Wednesday.
Expected declaration of onset of South-West monsoon over the Andaman region too has been put off in this manner.
Likely cyclone Significantly, the Met has said that the deep depression would move for some distance along the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coast, re-curve to the north-northeast (away from coast) and enter the Central Bay.
Here, it is likely to further intensify into a cyclone; but there is confusion over the path the prospective cyclone may take for making a landfall.
A storm tracker featured by the US Climate Prediction Centre says that the landfall point would likely be Gangetic West Bengal and adjoining Bangladesh over the next three to four days.
The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts sees the deep depression being guided along the Chennai-south coastal Andhra Pradesh stretch right up to the Odisha coast until Friday.
From here, it would make an apparently perpendicular turn towards the East and head for the Bangladesh coast close to Gangetic West Bengal by Sunday.
Landfall point But the European Centre does not indicate a storm of cyclonic strength here; it could make landfall at best as a deep depression (lower by a step in rank to a cyclone).
The Canadian Meteorological Centre sees the system growing into a full-scale cyclone and targeting Bangladesh for a landfall by Sunday.
The Global Forecast System of the US National Centre for Environmental Prediction predicts a minimal cyclone but looking to hit Bangladesh and northern Myanmar.
The US Navy Global Environment Model takes the cyclonic storm towards Gangetic West Bengal and Bangladesh.
The UK Met Office model suspects that a cyclone may be in the reckoning as early as on Thursday off the Andhra Pradesh-Odisha coast.
None of the models suggest any part of the East Coast of India taking a direct hit from the system.