Cyclone Fani may not make landfall near Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Contrary to the previous forecast, Tamil Nadu will most likely not receive heavy rainfall from the imminent cyclone Fani in the next week. According to the Meteorological Department, the cyclonic storm Fani may not make landfall close to the Tamil Nadu coast and therefore, there is a limited possibility of heavy rainfall in the state.

 S. Balachandran, the Deputy Director General of Meteorology, Chennai, has advised fishermen to not venture into the sea from April 28 May 1 as the sea condition could get rough along and off the coasts of Puducherry and Tamil Nadu.

Elaborating further, he explained that Friday’s depression over the east Equatorial Indian Ocean(EIO) and the adjoining southeast Bay of Bengal(BoB) moved northwestwards, intensified into a deep depression in the early morning of Saturday over the same region. Moving further northwestwards, it intensified into the cyclonic storm Fani over the southeast BoB and adjoining east EIO, and lay centered at about 880 km east-southeast of Trincomalee(Sri Lanka), 1,250 km southeast of Chennai(Tamil Nadu), and 1,460 km south-southeast of Machilipatnam (Andhra Pradesh). It is very likely to intensify into a ‘severe cyclonic storm’ during the next 24 hours.

He further said that it is likely to move northwestwards off the coast of Sri Lanka during the next 72 hours and reach near the north Tamil Nadu and south Andhra Pradesh coasts in the evening on April 30, and gradually recurve northeastwards thereafter.

Mr Balachandran explained that as the system is moving at a speed of 18 km per hour, and that it needs to accelerate up to 200-300 km per hour off the coast of Tamil Nadu for the state to receive moderate rainfall, there may not be heavy rainfall over the state.

Only light to moderate rainfall may occur in a few areas in the northern coastal regions on April 30 and May 1.  Any direct impact on its movement. From how it looks right now, it may not make landfall close to the coast of Tamil Nadu. Light to moderate rainfall is likely to occur in many areas with heavy showers in isolated locations in Kerala on 29th and 30th April.Light to moderate rainfall has been predicted to occur in a few areas over north coastal Tamil Nadu and coastal Andhra Pradesh on 30th April & 1st May.

The sea condition is likely to become very high over southwest BoB and off the coast of Sri Lanka coast morning onwards on April 28, very high to phenomenal over southwest BoB, off north Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coast night onwards on 29th April, and phenomenal over southwest and the adjoining west central BoB, off north Tamilnadu, Puducherry, and south Andhra Pradesh coasts morning onwards on 1st May.