Thiruvananthapuram, May 25 The very severe cyclone 'Mekunu' lay centred 320 km South-South-East of Salalah, Oman, by last evening, an India Met Department (IMD) update said.

Today is the last full day of 'Mekunu's active life over the waters, after it encountered the island feature of Socotra, off South Yemen, last night. The landfall is expected to take place early tomorrow morning.

'Bump' over Socotra

Some models suspect that this 'bump' over Socotra would have slowed it down, a bit, but the US Typhoon Warning Centre saw scope for slight intensification on its home stretch today. Low vertical wind shear, warm waters and strong 'window' effect to the top of the storm tower are enough to ensure the expected uptick in the overall strength and intensity.

IMD had said yesterday that it expected 'Mekunu' to become an extremely severe cyclone, but has not persisted with that outlook in subsequent updates. This is the penultimate class in its protocol of assessing storms in terms of calibrating them by its strength and intensity, topped by a super cyclone.

The Oman Directorate-General of Meteorology had said last evening that 'Mekunu' was located 400 km away off Salalah city, with surface winds speeds 126- to 144 km/hr.

Category-2 cyclone

It expected the cyclone to intensify into Category 2 (winds speeds between 154 km/hr and 177 km/hr) on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale of storm intensity later today. The approach of the storm centre to the Dhofar coast would lead to very heavy thundershowers and flash floods associated with strong gale-force winds.

The sea state will be 'rough' along Dhofar and Al Wusta coasts with maximum wave height between 16-26 ft and rough along South Al-Sharqiya coasts (9-14 ft).

According to the UK Met Office, cyclones of the strength of 'Mekunu' have made landfall over the Arabian Peninsula in the recent past. In 2015, cyclone 'Chapala' brought flash flooding as it came ashore over Yemen. Cyclone 'Phet' brought strong winds and heavy rain to North Oman when it made landfall in 2010.

'Gonu’, strongest ever

The strongest on record to make landfall over the Arabian Peninsula was super cyclone 'Gonu' in 2007 which hit North-East Oman with highest wind speeds recorded at 270 km/hr. In contrast, 'Mekunu' is much smaller, impacting the central part of the Arabian Peninsula close to the border between Oman and Yemen.

The historical record reveals that strong cyclones over this part of the peninsula are relatively rare. The most recent to make landfall close to the city of Salalah occurred in 1963 and 1959. The former produced over 20 cm of rain and caused severe sandstorms. The latter caused flooding and severe damage to buildings, the UK Met Office said.

Even as 'Mekunu' has spun away its compliment of incoming monsoon flows and moisture, the other end of the Arabian Sea (off India's coast) has been witnessing cloud build-up.

Monsoon build-up

Satellite pictures this morning showed the islands of Lakshadweep, Maldives, and Sri Lanka along with India's South-West coast (Kerala) masked by thunderclouds rising into the heights. The clouding now extends fully into the adjoining Bay of Bengal, starting off from the Tamil Nadu coast, the South-West and adjoining West-Central Bay and the Andaman Sea.

This is where IMD expects the Bay 'arm' of the monsoon precipitating either today or tomorrow, with the Arabian Sea 'arm' likely materialising over the Bay early next week.

It has warned fishermen from venturing into South-East Arabian Sea, Lakshadweep and off Kerala from tomorrow in view of likely strengthening of winds in the region. It expects rains over Lakshadweep, Kerala, Coastal Karnataka and parts of adjoining interior peninsula to scale up to heavy, very heavy or even extremely heavy from Monday.

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