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Influence of seasonal variability in the environmental factors on tropical cyclone activity over the Bay of Bengal region

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Abstract

The genesis of tropical cyclones over the Bay of Bengal region showed a significant amount of both spatial and temporal variability. Mean tropical cyclone genesis locations were shifted southward from July to December. The tropical cyclone activity was greatly suppressed during the monsoon (June–September) season compared to the post-monsoon (October-December) season. A Genesis Potential Index is presented to demonstrate the spatial and temporal alteration in the environmental factors contributing to the tropical cyclone genesis. Here we used six environmental factors such as instability, relative humidity, sea surface temperature, relative vorticity, mean sea level pressure and vertical wind shear. All of the six environmental factors showed a considerable amount of month-wise variability over the Bay of Bengal region from monsoon to post-monsoon season. We observed that during the monsoon season, instability, relative humidity and sea surface temperature were very favorable for tropical cyclone genesis, but the tropical cyclone frequency was very low compared to the post-monsoon season due to very high vertical wind shear and low relative vorticity. On the other hand, reduced vertical wind shear and increased relative vorticity overwhelmed the effect of reduced instability and increased relative humidity and favored tropical cyclone genesis during the post-monsoon season.

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  1. Department of Geography, Presidency University, Kolkata, India

    Abhisek Pal & Soumendu Chatterjee

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  1. Abhisek Pal
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  2. Soumendu Chatterjee
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Correspondence to Abhisek Pal.

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Pal, A., Chatterjee, S. Influence of seasonal variability in the environmental factors on tropical cyclone activity over the Bay of Bengal region. Spat. Inf. Res. 29, 673–684 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-021-00383-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41324-021-00383-9

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