A dangerous Category 1 cyclone Matmo is moving across the Bay of Bengal this week, while gradually strengthening on its way north. Matmo is packing winds of 65 knots / 75 mph / 120 km/h with a central pressure of around 985 mbar. Matmo has a long life as it formed in the South China Sea, crossed the Indochinese peninsula and re-intensified in the Bay of Bengal this week. It will continue north/northeast towards the possible landfall in the SW Bangladesh this weekend.
Satellite imagery reveals a quite impressive deep convective storms (cloud tops temperature is pushed below -75 °C) around the virtual center of the cyclone, located east of Indian peninsula. The system is actually quite large. Notice also another cyclone Nakri, gradually moving west towards Vietnam and also the remnants of Tropical cyclone Maha making landfall in NW India.
غطاء سحابي هائل يصاحب عاصفة خليج البنغال #Matmo "#ماتمو " .. pic.twitter.com/CUFkT0VCrD
— ابراهيم اللامي (@ibrahimallami1) November 7, 2019
An automatic Advanced Dvorak Technique (ADT) analysis suggest Matmo has central pressure around 986 mbar with maximum sustained winds 60-65 knots. This was the reason Matmo got upgraded into a Category 1 Tropical cyclone as of 18 UTC today, Nov 7th.
Ocean Heat Content (OHC) analysis indicates Matmo is currently located in quite good warmth of sea waters, but cyclone is also surrounded by some weak deep-layer shear. This is somehow limiting the more significant strengthening one would assume just from the OHC map. However, Matmo continues intensifying and will likely gain some strength by tomorrow and be upgraded into a strong Category 1 cyclone.
The future track of Matmo should bring the cyclone further north and then north/northeast before it makes landfall somewhere between areas SE of Kolkata (India) and SW Bangladesh over the weekend. Matmo should continue with some strengthening for another 36 hours and especially over the next 12 -18 hours where sea waters are the warmest.
The main concern with Matmo will be an extreme amount of rainfall as the cyclone is slow-moving. It is increasingly likely Matmo will bring several hundred mm of rain (250-400 mm possible) along its path across extreme ENE India and S Bangladesh. Dangerous flooding will likely occur in these areas! The landfall is likely to occur this weekend (Sunday) or even early next week.
Stay tuned for an update tomorrow if significant changes are expected.
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