India Met Department (IMD) has declared that the prevailing low-pressure area in the Central Bay of Bengal becomes 'marked', the first stage of its calibrated intensification as a likely depression.
Earlier this morning, the way had been apparently cleared for the 'low' as a competing weather system in the South China Sea, an erstwhile typhoon, ended its run over the Vietnam coast.
The IMD has lately put a watch for another 24 hours for the well-marked 'low' to intensify as a depression even as it moves north-west looking at the North Andhra Pradesh and South Odisha coasts.
Latest sea-surface temperature maps suggest that the warmest waters, where storms like to travel to, are along a stretch along the North Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts.
There is no sign of a western disturbance approaching from North-West India, associated strong north-westerlies could deflect the storm away from its designated area of landfall.
But once it enters the coast and lacks the convectional support it enjoyed over the sea waters, it would be run over by the prevailing westerlies associated with a withdrawing monsoon over Central India.
The remnant weather system over land could get driven away to the east-northeast, according to early forecasts, generating rain into East India and the adjoining foothills of the Himalayas.