Cyclone 'Fani' has slowed down a bit on its onward journey off the Andhra Pradesh coast around noon on Thursday and is taking its own time to push itself beyond Visakhapatnam.
But it has taken the turn to the North-North-East, India Met Department (IMD) said, which should orient it for the home stretch towards the Odisha coast for landfall tomorrow (Friday) afternoon.
'Fani' was located to 360 kilometres (km) South-South-West of Puri in Odisha and 550 km South-South-West of Digha (Bengal) on Thursday noon. It would the Odisha coast between Gopalpur and Chandbali, around Puri.
CYCLONE WARNING
At the time of crossing, it would feature maximum sustained wind speeds of up to a destructive 180 kilometres/hour (km/hr) and gusting to 200 km/hr. It is being tracked by Doppler radars at Vishakhapatnam and Machilipatnam.
Earlier in the morning, 'Fani's flaring outer bands (in yellow, orange and red as depicted in satellite pictures) were seen lashing the coast from Kakinada, Visakhapatnam and Srikakulam.
The IMD has already upgraded the 'cyclone alert' for Odisha, Bengal and North Andhra Pradesh coasts (Srikakulam, Vijayanagarm and Visakhapatnam) to a 'cyclone warning' in an 'orange message.'
A 'Cyclone alert' is a 'yellow' message and the 'cyclone warning,' an orange message. A 'red message' is issued with respect to the post-landfall outlook, which is a day away.
The IMD has warned that gale winds with speeds up to 190 km/hr gusting to 210 km/hr would prevail in the seas around the system until Friday morning and start scaling down thereafter.
HIGH WIND ALERT
Squally winds with speeds reaching 50 km/hr gusting to 60 km/hr would commence along and off North Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coasts from Thursday morning and become gale wind speeds of up to 70 km/hr gusting to 85 km/hr from the night.
Theses could escalate to clock 180 km/hr gusting to 200 km/hr along and off South Odisha and adjoining North Andhra Pradesh (Srikakulam District) coasts; and 90 km/hr to 100 km/hr gusting to 115 km/hr along
and off the remaining districts of Coastal Odisha and North Andhra Pradesh (Visakhapatnam and
Vijayanagaram districts) by tomorrow (Friday) noon into the night and decrease thereafter.
The Met has issued rainfall alerts for North Andhra Pradesh, South and Coastal Odisha, Bengal separately. They are as follows.
RAINFALL ALERT ISSUED
North Andhra Pradesh : Light to moderate rainfall at most places with isolated heavy to very heavy falls over Visakhapatnam and Vijayanagaram and isolated heavy to extremely heavy falls (>20 cm) over Srikakulam on Thursday with heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places on Friday.
Odisha : Light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places over South Coastal Odisha on Thursday.
This may scale up to moderate rainfall at most places and heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places and extremely heavy falls (>20 cm) at isolated places over Coastal Odisha and adjoining interior Odisha on Friday.
Light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy falls at isolated places over North Odisha on Saturday.
Bengal : Light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy falls at isolated places over Coastal and adjoining districts on Friday; heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places and extremely heavy falls at isolated places over the plains Saturday. Light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy falls at isolated places over the hills of Bengal and Sikkim on Saturday.