Cyclone Nivar: Visakhapatnam likely to receive moderate rainfall

Cyclone Nivar, which made landfall on late Wednesday night, has been causing severe rains to lash several parts of Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. While Nivar weakened from very severe cyclonic storm to severe cyclonic storm as it crossed the coast, its effect is expected to last for a few more days. As per the Cyclone Warning Centre (CWC), Visakhapatnam district is likely to receive moderate rainfall on Thursday and Friday. It may be noted that under the influence of Cyclone Nivar parts of Visakhapatnam have been receiving rains since Thursday morning. The fishermen have been warned against venturing into the sea.

As per the weather bulletin by Cyclone Warning Centre, rain or thundershowers are very likely to occur at most places over Andhra Pradesh, with heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places. Isolated extremely heavy rainfall activity is very likely to occur over Prakasam, Kurnool, Kadapa and Chittoor districts of Andhra Pradesh on 26 November 2020. The CWC further notified that heavy rainfall is likely to occur at one or two places over north coastal Andhra Pradesh and Guntur, Nellore, and Anantapur districts.

The bulletin, released on Thursday morning, stated that gale wind, prevailing over Southwest Bay of Bengal, has been reaching a speed of 100-110 kmph gusting to 120 kmph. It will gradually decrease to 75-85 kmph, gusting to 95 kmph, by morning and squally wind speed reaching 45-55 kmph gusting to 65 kmph by noon of 26 November 2020.

Providing information about the sea condition, the CWC said that the condition will gradually turn rough to very rough by Thursday noon and improve further by evening.

With the prevailing conditions and the forecast on hand, the fishermen have been advised to suspend all fishing operations until Thursday night. Distant Warning signal number two (DW-II) was kept hoisted at Visakhapatnam port as of 5:30 AM on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed District Collectors to stay alert in order to minimise any possible damage that could be caused by Cyclone Nivar.