Will Cyclone Biparjoy bring heavy rain to Mumbai? What we know so far

The west coast of India, especially Maharashtra should brace itself. There’s a storm coming its way and its name is Cyclone Biparjoy.

According to India’s official weatherman, the India Meteorological Department (IMD), the storm is currently located 920 km west-southwest of Goa, 1,120 km south-southwest of Mumbai, 1,160 km south of Porbandar and 1,520 km south of Karachi, Pakistan.

So, what do we know about this cyclonic storm that is forming over the Arabian Sea? Will it bring heavy rain to the western coast? How did it get its name – Cyclone Biparjoy?

Here’s all we know about the cyclone.

Cyclone Biparjoy’s name

The name Biparjoy has been given by Bangladesh and it means ‘disaster’ in English.

According to the World Meteorological Organisation, weather forecasters give names to tropical storms to avoid confusion. They are named according to the rules at the regional level.

For the Indian Ocean region, a formula for naming cyclones was agreed upon in 2004. Initially, eight countries — Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand — contributed a set of names, which were assigned sequentially whenever a cyclonic storm developed. Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen later joined the group.

For a name to be selected, it should be easy to remember and pronounce. Moreover, it shouldn’t be offensive and controversial and the names are chosen from a variety of languages so that people from different regions can identify with them.

For instance, the name Cyclone Mocha, was proposed by Yemen based on a small fishing village in the country, famous for its coffee production.

In the Atlantic and southern hemisphere (Indian Ocean and South Pacific), tropical cyclones receive names in alphabetical order, alternating between women’s and men’s names.

Also read: How Cyclone Mocha brewing over the Bay of Bengal got its name from coffee

Trajectory of Cyclone Biparjoy

Cyclone Biparjoy is a low-pressure area that is currently forming over the Southeast Arabian Sea. It is expected to intensify into a depression in the next 48 hours and may reach cyclonic storm intensity in the subsequent 72 hours.

Private weather forecaster Skymet has said that the movement of the cyclone is not clear as yet. “Few models are indicating its movement in the northerly direction along the west coast of the country. Some models indicate its movement to the north initially and re-curvature to the north-northeast direction towards Omen and Yemen.”

The IMD, on the other hand, has said that it is likely to move nearly northwards and intensify into a depression over southeast and adjoining east-central Arabian Sea during the subsequent 48 hours.

Some reports also stated that the cyclone could affect Pakistan’s coastal belt, including Karachi. Pakistani weather expert Jawad Memon told GeoTV, “The low-pressure system can intensify and turn into a cyclone between June 10 and 11, posing a possible threat to the coastal belt of Sindh, Balochistan, Gujarat (India) and Oman.”

Rains expected

The IMD has also stated that the formation of the low-pressure system over the southeast Arabian Sea and its intensification is expected to critically influence the advance of the monsoon towards the Kerala coast.

The monsoon has already missed its 4 June date with Kerala. In 2022, the southeast monsoon arrived in the southern state on 29 May 29, 3 June in 2021, 1 June in 2020, 8 June in 2019 and 29 May in 2018.

Also read: IMD predicts El Nino for this year: How will it affect monsoon rains in India?

This clearly shows that this year’s monsoon is quite delayed, though officials say that the country will see normal to below normal rainfall.

D S Pai, senior scientist, IMD, told news agency PTI that conditions are favourable for the onset of monsoon over the next two to three days.

Cyclones in India

Cyclone Biparjoy is the second cyclone to form within three weeks in the North Indian Ocean. Earlier in May, Cyclone Mocha, which formed in the Bay of Bengal, barrelled into Bangladesh and Myanmar causing massive destruction.

Meteorologists and climate scientists had then said that it was possibly the strongest tropical cyclone in the northern Indian Ocean region since 1982. At the time, experts had said that the climate crisis was providing conditions for unusually rapid intensification of cyclones and supercharging them, threatening lives of millions of vulnerable people along the coasts, experts said.

With inputs from agencies

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