A tropical cyclone could hit Oman and Yemen by the end of this month,  a UK-based international weather bureau has predicted.

The bureau forecast that the landfall of the cyclone could be on May 29 around Oman/Yemen coast, said a report in Gulf News.

According to the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), the onset phase of this year’s monsoon could feature a cyclone in the west Arabian Sea, the report said.

Manfred Kloeppel, assistant to director, ECMWF, was quoted by the Gulf News as saying the forecast last Monday (May 19) showed a system developing and hitting Oman on May 28. “This not so prominent in Tuesday’s forecast,” he added.

He also clarified that ECMWF dooes not forecast a cyclone to hit the Gulf states, although "there clearly is still some potential for this to happen."

A senior official at Oman's Directorate General of Meteorology and Air Navigation (DGMAN) confirmed that they have initial reports about the possibility of a storm.

“We are in preparedness,” Badr Al Rumhi of DGMAN was quoted as saying in the report.
told Gulf News on Tuesday. He, however, did not elaborate.

The path of the cyclone would resemble those of tropical Cyclone Gonu, which killed 48 people when it struck Oman last year, the report said.

However, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) says that unlike tropical cyclone Gonu, the intensity of this impending storm would be low.