A low-pressure area is likely to form over the southeast Bay of Bengal around 13 November and strengthen into a well-marked low-pressure area within 24 hours of forming, the Department of Meteorology says, with winds of 40–50 kmph and gusts to 60 kmph expected over the Andaman Sea and southeast Bay of Bengal on 14 and 15 November.
The system is expected to move north-westwards, the Daily Mirror reported on Tuesday evening. The department has advised naval and fishing communities operating in those sea areas — particularly multi-day fishing boats — to stay alert and follow later weather updates and warnings.
Three dates in three days
This is the third date the department has given for the same developing system, and readers following it should treat the timing as unsettled rather than revised.
| Filed | Outlet | What the department said |
|---|---|---|
| 8 Nov | Hiru News | Disturbance to redevelop in the south-eastern Bay of Bengal and around the Andaman Sea by 11 November, with potential to become a low-pressure condition by around 13 November |
| 9 Nov | Daily Mirror | ”Another atmospheric disturbance” developing over the south-east Bay of Bengal, expected to convert into a low-pressure system by 15 November |
| 10 Nov | Daily Mirror | Low-pressure area likely to form around 13 November, well-marked within 24 hours |
This desk reported the first of those on Sunday and the second on Monday, where the 15 November figure was attributed to duty forecaster Udeni Weerasinghe. Tuesday’s filing returns to the earlier date without acknowledging the Monday one.
What has firmed up is the detail rather than the date: Tuesday’s filing is the first to put numbers on the wind field and the first to name the 24-hour intensification step.
What this is not
Tuesday’s warning is a deep-sea marine advisory, directed at boats working the Andaman Sea and southeast Bay of Bengal. It is not a landfall forecast, it does not name a cyclone, and it carries no rainfall figure for Sri Lanka.
That distinction matters this week because a separate and unrelated set of products is live over the island: the department warned on Tuesday morning of rainfall above 100mm across the Western, Sabaragamuwa, Central and Uva provinces and the Galle and Matara districts, after 162.5mm was recorded overnight at Deniyaya. Those are current land warnings from existing rain. The low-pressure system is a forecast about open water three to five days out, and the two should not be read as one event.
Context
Bay of Bengal systems have driven Sri Lanka’s most damaging weather this season. Cyclone Arnab made landfall in Andhra Pradesh in late October and the Disaster Management Centre counted 21,356 people affected here from its outer effects alone. A system that forms in the southeast Bay and tracks north-west moves away from Sri Lanka’s latitude, which is why the current advisory addresses multi-day boats in distant waters rather than the coast.
Not reported
The filing gives no sea-state category for the affected areas, no validity window for the advisory, and no warning tier — it does not say whether an amber or red advisory has been issued. It does not reconcile the date with Monday’s 15 November figure, name the forecaster, or say whether the system is expected to affect Sri Lankan waters at any point.
Nor does it say whether the earlier “atmospheric disturbance” and this low-pressure area are the same system at different stages or two distinct features, a question Monday’s use of the word “another” raised and no filing has since answered.
Sourcing
The Daily Mirror’s filing carries the JSON-LD author value “Administrator”, which on that site generally marks a restatement of an official release rather than desk reporting; the text reads as a Meteorology Department notice. Ada Derana carried a parallel advisory on Tuesday (adaderana.lk/news/251401) but returned HTTP 403 to this desk and could not be dated, and no other verified newsroom reachable from here had filed on the 13 November forecast at the time of writing. Search results offered an advisory tier and a validity window for the Ada Derana item; neither could be confirmed against a fetched source and neither is reproduced here.