While the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has over the years been largely accurate in forecasting the direction and intensity of cyclones into India, data suggest that it takes more time for the agency to accurately forecast the trajectory of storms that originate in the Arabian Sea, than those in the Bay of Bengal.
Historically, most cyclones around India tend to originate in the Bay of Bengal but global warming, as scientists have been pointing out for a while now, is causing the Arabian Sea to be heating up more than average and whetting greater - and increasingly stronger – cyclones like Biparjoy, which barrelled into Gujarat late Thursday.
On the evening of June 9, Biparjoy was situated about 700 km west of Goa and as per the IMD forecast, expected to move north and briefly curve east, and after June 10, shift course west and away from the Gujarat coast to dissipate into the sea without reaching land in either Kutch, Gujarat or Pakistan. Only on June 11, or four days before Biparjoy commenced landfall on June 15, did the IMD first suggest that the storm would strike India.
