The Department of Meteorology has advised fishing and naval communities not to venture into a defined block of the Bay of Bengal until further notice, because of a depression over the Andaman Sea.
The advisory covers sea areas between latitudes 10°N and 15°N and longitudes 80°E and 90°E, Hiru News reported at 5.49 p.m. Colombo time on Friday.
That box sits east and north-east of Sri Lanka, in the central and eastern Bay of Bengal. It does not cover the island’s coastal waters, and the advisory as reported is directed at vessels operating in that offshore area rather than at inshore fishing.
Why the boundaries matter
The co-ordinates are the operative part of the notice. Multi-day boats working the Bay of Bengal routinely cross the area described, while single-day craft along Sri Lanka’s coast generally do not. The filing carries no warning for Sri Lankan coastal waters and no inland weather warning.
Not reported
This is a short filing and leaves most of the forecast unstated. It does not give the depression’s position or its expected track, does not say whether the system is forecast to intensify further, and gives no expected wind speeds or sea conditions within the advisory area. It sets no review date beyond “until further notice” and does not say when the department issued the notice.
Readers should treat the department’s own bulletins as the current position; conditions in the Bay of Bengal during the north-east monsoon can change within hours, and the advisory’s duration is open-ended.
Single source. A search of the other verified newsrooms returned coverage of the earlier Cyclone Arnab system, which developed in the same waters in late October and is a separate event — no other verified outlet was found carrying Friday’s advisory at the time of writing. Ada Derana, which search results indicate also filed on it, has returned an HTTP 403 block to this desk for some 49 consecutive days and could not be fetched or dated.
