After longest lull since 2012, year’s first cyclone forms over Arabian Sea

To be sure, this cyclone is more likely to make the seas rough than cause havoc inland.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said in a 4pm bulletin on Friday that a deep depression in the northeast Arabian Sea had intensified into a cyclone at 11.30am, ending an unusually calm period for India’s coasts. This is the first cyclone to form in the North Indian Ocean this year — a dry spell not seen since 2012, when no cyclones were reported in either the Bay of Bengal or the Arabian Sea up to September.

(REPRESENTATIVE IMAGE) (HT_PRINT)

To be sure, this

Long lull before the storm.

Cyclone formation in the Arabian Sea is increasing

Another interesting fact about Cyclone Shakhti is that the first cyclone of the year has formed in the Arabian Sea rather than the Bay of Bengal. It is in line with a known long-term trend: cyclones in the Arabian Sea are becoming more frequent. The eAtlas data also shows that while Bay of Bengal still hosts more cyclones than the Arabian Sea, the frequency of cyclones is decreasing in the former and increasing in the latter. Why is this happening? Warmer seas is the short answer. In a 2021 paper published in the journal Climate Dynamics, Medha Deshpande and other scientists have also shown an increase in duration of cyclones in the Arabian Sea. This, the scientists found, was correlated with warming surface temperatures of the sea and tropical cyclone heat potential, which measures how deep the warmth of the ocean goes.