The India Met Department (IMD) too has joined the outlook for a low-pressure area likely developing over the Gulf of Siam (now Gulf of Thailand) over the next two three days.
The IMD has said the 'low' would gradually cross southern Thailand into the North Andaman Sea between November 4 and 5 (Saturday and Sunday).
LIKELY STORM
The IMD's wind-field projections suggest that the 'low' would intensify into a depression by the time it reaches the North Andamans, a possibility discounted by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts.
The IMD and the European agency differ with respect to the level of intensification and track of its movement in the Bay of Bengal.
The IMD suggests that the depression could move west-northwest towards the Andhra Pradesh coast even as a follow-up storm develops rapidly in the South China Sea.
This, too, is forecast to enter the Gulf of Thailand enroute to the Andaman Sea, but would lose momentum since the predecessor would still be engaged in an elaborate landfall over the Andhra Pradesh coast around November 7 (Tuesday next).
DIFFERING OUTLOOK
An outlook from the US Climate Prediction Centre says that the depression/ storm would initially travel towards Sri Lanka and South Tamil Nadu, but could get diverted to the North midway.
In the near term, a persisting cyclonic circulation over the South-West Bay (off Sri Lanka and South-East Tamil Nadu) needs to be watched for its capacity to generate rain along the Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu coasts.
In its outlook for today, the IMD has forecast heavy to very rainfall at isolated places along coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry and heavy over interior Tamil Nadu.
The heavy rain belt will spread to south coastal Andhra Pradesh, Rayalaseema and Kerala tomorrow and persist over these areas until Friday.
The US agency suspects that this enhanced rain activity over the coast could cause the depression to veer from its course and spare the Tamil Nadu coast a direct hit.