States brace for heavy rain due to Asani; IMD says mercury over NW, central India to rise
NEW DELHI: Severe cyclonic storm Asani packing winds up to 120kmph is likely to reach west central and adjoining northwest Bay of Bengal before weakening in the next 24 hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Monday.
Although the cyclone is not expected to make landfall, it will lead to rain and high winds on the east coast and higher temperatures over northwest and central India.
On Monday afternoon, Asani was centered over west central Bay of Bengal, about 820km west-northwest of Port Blair, 450km southeast of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, and 610km south of Puri in Odisha, the weather office said.
“It is very likely to move northwestwards till Tuesday and reach west central and adjoining northwest Bay of Bengal off north Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts,” it said. “Thereafter, it is very likely to recurve north northeastwards and move towards northwest Bay of Bengal off Odisha coast. It is likely to weaken gradually into a cyclonic storm during next 24 hours.”
When Asani starts recurving, temperatures are likely to increase over northwest and central India, weather scientists monitoring the super cyclone said. “As Cyclone Asani nears the coast, it will start drawing a lot of dry air from the land. This sucking in of dry air will lead to incursion of warm, dry westerly and northwesterly winds blowing over northwest and central India,” said DS Pai, director at the Institute of Climate Change Studies, Kerala, and a former scientist at IMD. “The system has already started dragging dry air. We can expect maximum temperatures to rise over central and northwest India now till about May 13.”
The IMD has issued a warning for heatwaves over parts of Rajasthan (May 9 to 13) with isolated severe heatwave conditions over western parts of the state (May 10 to 12). It also warned of heatwaves in Gujarat (May 9 and 10), Vidarbha in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh (May 9 to 13), south Haryana and south Punjab (May 10 to 13) and over Delhi (May 11 to 13).
“There is likely to be a rise in maximum temperatures by 2-3 degrees Celsius over south Punjab, south Haryana-Delhi, Rajasthan and north Madhya Pradesh during next four days and no significant change thereafter,” IMD said in its forecast.
Asani’s speed has slowed marginally, indicating it might not weaken very fast, said Ananda Kumar Das, in-charge of the weather bureau’s cyclone monitoring division.
“It’s still very much a severe cyclone but thankfully it has not caused any damage or even extremely heavy rain over the coast. There was some heavy rainfall over the Andamans, but nothing major. We expect it to remain strong in the severe cyclone or cyclone category till Wednesday,” said Das.