Cyclone threat for Andhra fizzles out

HYDERABAD: Coastal Andhra Pradesh, and especially Visakhapatnam, heaved a sigh of relief after a threat of a cyclonic storm died out on Friday.

A low pressure area in the Bay of Bengal which had formed over the past few days could only reach the level of a deep depression, thereby not needing Met officials to give it a name. It had, however, become popular as ‘Ashoba’.

According to Met officials, the deep depression which was stationery over central Bay of Bengal on Friday morning was moving slowly towards the Andhra coast.

“But it is weakening into a depression and would subsequently become a Well Marked Low Pressure Area. It would fizzle out before making a land fall,” a Met official at the cyclone warning centre, Vizag, told HT.

However, due to the low pressure, rains and winds of up to 50 kmph are expected across Andhra and north Tamil Nadu coast from Saturday.