The recent very severe cyclonic storm (VSCS) ‘Nargis’ over the Bay of Bengal caused widespread
destruction over Myanmar after hitting the coast on 2 May 2008. The real time forecasting of the
VSCS ‘Nargis’ was a very difficult task as it did not follow the normal westerly/northwesterly track.
In the present study, a detailed diagnostic analysis of the system ‘Nargis’ is carried out initially
to investigate the features associated with this unusual movement and subsequently the real time
forecast of VSCS ‘Nargis’ using high resolution advanced version weather research forecasting
(WRF) model is presented. The advanced research WRF model was run for 72 h at 27 km and
20 km resolutions with 28, 29, 30 April and 1 May as the initial conditions. The diagnostic study
indicates that the recurvature of the system ‘Nargis’ was mainly associated with