Cyclone Phethai might not hit Chennai city
Posted on: 15/Dec/2018 10:04:53 AM
Just when people belonging to the Chennai city are having fears about cyclone Phethai hitting the Chennai city, here comes another piece of news. It is well known that the weathermen had predicted that cyclone Phethai might hit Chennai city and Chennai might receive heavy rains. Now it is revealed that is cyclone Phethai might skip Chennai and Chennai city might not receive heavy rains over the weekend as predicted. As per the IMD it is said that the system would intensify into a cyclonic storm from a deep depression and further into a severe cyclonic storm later and is likely to make landfall on Monday afternoon between Ongole and Kakinada belonging to Andhra Pradesh.
On Friday afternoon, the deep depression over the southeast Bay of Bengal was about 930 km southeast of Chennai and 1090 km southeast of Machilipatnam. This was according to the regional weather inference by Indian Meteorological department or IMD. It is likely to intensify into a cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours and into a severe cyclone in the subsequent 24 hours of time.
The system might bring light rains to Chennai city on Sunday afternoon and the intensity might increase by Monday, 17th December 2018. This was confirmed by Mr. S. Balachandran, director of area cyclone warning centre or ACWC. He later spoke about how in the present scenario the intensity of rains would be moderate in places like Chennai, Kancheepuram and Thiruvallur etc as the outer bands of the system is over the that region. From the movement and size of the storm the scenario might change. It must be taken into account that on Thursday meteorologists predicted heavy rainfall in the Chennai city even as the storm was gathering strength over the Bay of Bengal. It is now clear that the meteorologists were observing further changes in the strength and the amount of rainfall it would bring to Chennai city. This was based on the movement of the system towards the land.
The system might travel close to Chennai before moving towards north and this could result in heavy rains over some parts of north coastal Tamil Nadu. This was later confirmed by some weather experts. Chief meteorologist of Skymet, Mr. Mahesh Palawat, hinted that south coastal Andhra Pradesh might have heavy to very heavy spell of rains. On Saturday, the sky condition is likely to be cloudy in Chennai city and there might be gusty winds reaching speeds of 45-55 km ph to 65 kmph over north Tamil Nadu.
