Pre Monsoon cyclone season has kicked off well for the Indian Seas with plenty of action over Bay of Bengal (BoB) during March 2022. Unprecedented, 2 cyclonic disturbances emerged in the BoB, one each in the 1st and 3rd week of the month. In the 1st case, the national weather agency stopped short of announcing cyclone formation, whereas few other world wide weather agencies upgraded the disturbance to a tropical storm 1B, albeit getting downed quickly over the open waters itself.
The 2nd system over North Andaman Sea found consonance amongst most agencies of likely tropical storm, but fell short of delivering in the last leg. The weather system struck Myanmar as deep depression and has now weakened to a low pressure area. Early signs of cyclogenesis over the Indian Seas may well be construed as an active pre monsoon stormy season ahead, for the sub-continent.
In the recent history, 2019 was the most active year churning record number of cyclones over the Indian Seas. Since 1970, highest number of tropical storms, 09 developed over the Indian basin on either side of the coastline. Arabian Sea became an outlier by hosting all time high of 6 cyclones in a year, far exceeding a total of 3 storms over BoB. Since 1970, Indian Seas had a record of churning 8 cyclones thrice, 1975, 1987 and 1998. BoB usually hosts more number of storms than Arabian Sea, but defied in 1998 and 2019.
Year 2019 had the exception of holding storms of each grade, from ‘cyclonic storm’ to ‘super cyclone. That year also had the distinction of evolving 2 Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storms and equal number of Very Severe Cyclonic Storms. This also happened to be an exclusive year of anchoring a storm each in the opening month January (PABUK) and closing days of December ( 07A). Year 2019, along with 2020 stand alone as duo of holding Super Cyclone each in quick succession, Kyarr over Arabian Sea in Post Monsoon and Amphan in the BoB during Pre Monsoon season.
Summer Equinox has commenced on 20thMarch and the Sun has started its march in to the Northern Hemisphere. Also, the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone will become more active over the Indian Seas. Most cyclonic disturbances pop up in this zone of convection and rev up later on either side of Indian coastline.