Visitors at Jubilee Park, Jamshedpur, give woollens a miss on Tuesday. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Wondering why winter is still not feeling like winter? Well, after Phailin and Helen, yet another severe cyclonic storm is brewing in the Bay of Bengal and pushing up minimum readings in Jharkhand.

Nicknamed Lehar, the storm that originated in the Andamans and is heading towards the Andhra Pradesh coast is likely to make the weather warmer after the next 24 hours.

Weathermen at Patna Meteorological Centre said the rapidly intensifying cyclonic storm lay centred over the south-east Bay of Bengal. The system would deepen further, move north-west and cross the Andhra coast between Machilipatnam and Kalingapatnam near Kakinada around Thursday noon.

“The storm, which is almost the same in intensity as Phailin that had hit in October, will result in moisture incursion into the upper layers of the atmosphere. This may result in clouding over Jharkhand in the next 48 hours. Minimum temperatures will rise as a consequence,” explained A.K. Sen, the director of Patna Met office.

He ruled out the possibility of rainfall and said that the mercury would once again dip around November 30.

Senior forecast official in Patna B.N. Chaudhary said partly cloudy skies were expected at some places of Jharkhand after 24 hours.

“Lehar is centred near the 12.5 degree north latitude and the 90 degree east longitude. Our observations suggest that except for cloud formation owing to moisture incursion, there will be little impact,” he said.

The senior Met official pointed out that after a long time such severe cyclonic storms were appearing one after the other. “The phenomenon is rare. These storms do not largely impact Jharkhand and its neighbouring states because they diffuse in southern states,” he said.

Helen, another cyclonic storm that had originated in the Bay and made landfall in Andhra coast last Thursday, had pushed up minimum readings too.

The night temperature in most parts of the state has, however, witnessed a fall in the last 24 hours.

The minimum in Jamshedpur dropped to 13.2°C from 15.3°C on Tuesday, the new reading being a notch below the normal. Capital Ranchi clocked the same normal minimum of 11.5°C for two days.

Temperatures have dipped by two degrees in Koderma, Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Simdega and a few other places.