The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has announced that the first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal this pre-monsoon season will make its landfall near West Bengal on the evening of May 26. It has been named ‘Remal’, meaning sand in Arabic.The existing low-pressure system over the Bay of Bengal will concentrate into a depression over central Bay of Bengal by Friday morning. It will further intensify into a cyclonic storm on Saturday morning and reach Bangladesh and the adjoining West Bengal coast as a severe cyclonic storm by Sunday evening, the IMD said.
According to the IMD, the cyclone could reach a wind speed of 102 kilometres per hour on Sunday.
As a result, there is a possibility of rain with thunder and lightning in a couple of places in Puducherry and Karaikal on Thursday and Friday, with the likelihood of continuous rain accompanied by thunder from May 25.
It is expected that rains may decrease in Tamil Nadu and temperatures may increase as the storm moves toward the north.
Meanwhile, the Met office has warned of very heavy rainfall in the coastal districts of West Bengal, north Odisha, Mizoram, Tripura and south Manipur on between May 25 and 27. Fisherfolk out at sea have been advised to return to the coast before May 23, and not venture into the Bay of Bengal until May 27.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) decided in 2020 to prepare a list of names for tropical cyclones that occur in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, which together are referred to as the North Indian Ocean. The IMD had presented a list of 169 names for cyclones that year. They had suggested that if the current cyclonic circulation in the Bay of Bengal intensifies into a cyclone, it will be named ‘Remal’.