NWP Forecast Guidance during Phet at Oman Meteorological Service - Monitoring and Prediction of Tropical Cyclones in the Indian Ocean and Climate Change - page 225

NWP Forecast Guidance during Phet
at Oman Meteorological Service

Sultan Salim Al-Yahyai
Directorate General of Meteorology and Air Navigation, Oman
e-mail: [e-mail]

1. Introduction

1.1 Historical Tropical Cyclones in Arabian Sea

Tropical storms and cyclones are almost entirely confined to two cyclone
seasons namely the pre-monsoonal period (May-June) and post-monsoonal
period (October-November) (Membery, 1985). Most storms originate over the
south-eastern Arabian Sea in the vicinity of the Lakshadweep Islands, but some
late season storms start over the south eastern Bay of Bengal and move
westwards across southern India re-generating as they cross over the warm
waters of the Arabian Sea.
Table 1 shows the frequency of tropical storms and cyclones (wind speeds
of Beaufort force 10 or more) affecting the Arabian Sea, 1801-2000 (Membery,
2001). Three additional cyclones have been added to the table. One affected
Salalah coast on 10 May 2002 (Membery, 1997), the second affected Muscat
cost 6 June 2007 and the third is Phet tropical cyclone.

Table 1: Frequency of tropical storms and cyclones

Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May June July Aug. Sep. Oct. Nov. Dec.

1 0 1 9 27 31 1 2 4 19 31 4

1.2 Tropical Cyclone Phet
Phet started as a deep depression over Arabian Sea on 31 st May 2010 (15.3° N,
63.9° E), 850 km southeast Masirah Island. It then intensified into a tropical
storm, Phet on June 1 st at 18UTC with associated wind speed around the centre
of about 34 knots. On June 2 nd , Phet was classified as a very severe cyclonic