Cyclone Michaung begins landfall, Andhra Coast braces for intense weather

Cyclone Michaung has resulted in hefty rains over the lower half of the east coast. In fact, in two days, Chennai has recorded massive rains of about 50 cm, which is more than double the amount of its monthly mean.

Now, the storm has crossed abeam Ongole, and Kavali and the landfall process has begun. This storm is compact and will not take a very long time to complete the process, which could be about two hours or so.

Most of the significant clouding is over land and the eyewall clouds have already entered inland across Ongole, Bapatla etc. Moreover, the forward section of the storm has already moved while the centre of the storm is yet to cross the coast. After all the dense clouding moves inland, will the landfall be complete.

With this, we can expect heavy to very heavy rains over Bapatla, Guntur and the Krishna Delta area. These regions will be the most affected in terms of heavy rains, and very strong winds. Thus, caution needs to be exercised for some time today.

The storm is expected to weaken right after the landfall and recurve. Heavy rains are after that, expected over Telangana as it will take more of a northeastward turn. Thereafter, even the central and northern parts of Chhattisgarh and Odisha may see some intense rainfall activities.

We can expect some improvement over the Andhra Coast, about six hours after the landfall,

Severe Cyclone Michaung to make landfall over Andhra Coast tomorrow, hefty rains ahead

The Severe Cyclonic Storm Michaung has been moving moreover northward. The storm is likely to recurve later and therefore may slow down a bit. Accordingly, the landfall is expected to be delayed and instead of the morning hours, it may happen late afternoon tomorrow or during the early evening hours.

It is lying now about 130 km Northeast of Chennai. The city of Chennai has already recorded over 200 mm yesterday and around 150 mm more in nine hours between 8:30 am and 5:30 pm. With this, Chennai Airport remained closed until 11:30 pm and the closure is further extended till 9 am tomorrow.

Tomorrow, the Cyclone is expected to make landfall near Bapatla in Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected to be seen over Nellore, Ongole, Kavali, Bapatla, and Machilipatnam during that time. Along with heavy rains, all kinds of disruption including rail, road, and air traffic are quite likely in Chennai today and the aforementioned parts of Coastal Andhra Pradesh tomorrow.

Authorities have been alerted and educational institutions have been declared closed tomorrow in some parts of Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Residents have been moved to safer areas and the NDRF teams are bracing themselves for the landfall of Michaung. Heavy rains, strong winds and uprooting of trees, waterlogging, and inundation will be seen tomorrow in parts of Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

[Hindi] चक्रवात मिचौंग के सौजन्य से कोलकाता में बेमौसम बारिश की आशंका

कोलकाता शहर में पिछले कुछ समय से शुष्क मौसम की स्थिति देखी जा रही है। वास्तव में, पश्चिम बंगाल की राजधानी में पिछले 20 दिनों या उससे अधिक समय में कोई वर्षा गतिविधि नहीं देखी गई है।

अब, यह सब बदलने वाला है क्योंकि शहर में कुछ वर्षा की गतिविधियाँ देखने की संभावना है। ये वर्षा गतिविधियाँ चक्रवात मिचौंग के सहयोग से होंगी जिसके कल सुबह तक आंध्र प्रदेश तट को पार करने की उम्मीद है।

जबकि तूफान पश्चिम बंगाल और ओडिशा तट से अपनी दूरी बनाए रखेगा, तूफान के बादल बैंड ओडिशा और पश्चिम बंगाल की ओर जाएंगे। इस प्रकार, 5 से 7 दिसंबर के बीच बारिश देखने को मिलेगी। 5 और 6 दिसंबर को मध्यम बारिश देखने को मिलेगी, जबकि 7 दिसंबर को बारिश कम होने की संभावना है।

ये वर्षा गतिविधियाँ प्रकृति में बेमौसम हैं क्योंकि कोलकाता शहर में नवंबर और दिसंबर दोनों में अधिक बारिश नहीं होती है। दरअसल, बारिश ऐसी स्थिति में ही देखने को मिलती है, जब बंगाल की खाड़ी में कोई सिस्टम बनता है।

Unseasonal rain in Kolkata to make an appearance, courtesy Cyclone Michaung

The city of Kolkata has been seeing dry weather conditions for quite some time. In fact, the capital city of West Bengal has not seen any rainfall activity in the last 20 days and more.

Now, this is all set to change as the city of joy is likely to witness some rainfall activities. These rainfall activities will be in association with Cyclone Michaung which is expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast by tomorrow morning.

While the storm will maintain its distance from West Bengal and Odisha Coast, the cloud bands of the storm will go towards Odisha and West Bengal. Thus, rains will be seen between December 5 and 7. Moderate showers will be seen on December 5 and 6 while on December 7th, rains are all set to reduce.

These rainfall activities are unseasonal in nature as the city of Kolkata does not see much rains in both November and December. In fact, rains are only seen in such situations when some system forms in the Bay of Bengal.

Cyclone Michaung to give rain over Telangana soon

Cyclone Michaung has been lashing the eastern coast including Andhra Pradesh as well as Tamil Nadu. In fact, three digit rain has been occurring over these regions and accompanying these are other heavy rain woes including waterlogging, inundation, traffic and air chaos as well as uprooting of trees etcetera.

Now, the storm is moving northward and will have more of northeastward track after that. It is expected to cross coast tomorrow between Nellore and Machilipatnam in coastal Andhra Pradesh.

The storm is expected to weaken after that and it is not likely to go very deep because it will recurve northeastward. With this, we can expect the eastern half of Telangana to be seeing heavy rains including the cities of Khammam, Nalgonda, Mehboobabad, Bhadrachalam etc on December 5 and 6.

Other parts of the state may not see heavy rains. In fact, even the capital city of Hyderabad will not see heavy rains but still see showers and clouding. In fact, rains have started to be seen over the region. These rainfall activities will see a reduction on December 7

Cyclone Michaung, Chennai Receives Record Heavy Rainfall In December

Capital city of Tamil Nadu has rained non-stop for more than 15hours. Today, it is raining nearly at the rate of 25-30mm per hour since morning. The airport observatory at Meenambakkam recorded a deluge of 250mm rainfall in 24hr, ending 8.30 a.m. Between 8.30 a.m and 2.30pm, another 108mm rainfall has been added and it continues to rain incessantly. The blinding rains are accompanied with gale speed gusty winds.

Earlier, the city far exceeded its normal rainfall in November. Average rainfall in December drops significantly and amounts to about 191mm. The city has amassed a huge total of 460mm rainfall till 2.30 pm today, in this month. Heavy rains are continuing, without break and it may surpass earlier monthly record of 542mm in December 2015. In that month, the observatory at airport had recorded massive 345mm rainfall in 24hr on 02^nd Dec 2015.

Cyclonic storm has already crossed abeam Chennai in the forenoon hours today. However the intense rains are nearly non-stop. Coastal inundation due to storm surge, over and above the astronomical tide has resulted water logging in the low lying areas. Stagnating water level will rise further and extend over areas deep inland, far away from the coast. Deadly combination of high speed winds and torrential rains will continue to disrupt the air operations and also impact rail and road traffic. In fact, as per reports, Chennai airport has been closed until 11:30 PM tonight due to inclement weather conditions.

The storm is now centered about over 100km east-northeast of Chennai. As it happens quite often, the satellite center and synoptic center of the storm are not matching. The synoptic center is lying outside the Cloud Dense Overcast (CDO). Therefore, extremely heavy rains are continuing even after the storm has crossed east abeam city. Convective cluster of tall thunder clouds is hanging around overhead to far fringes to the south of the city. Accordingly, heavy to very heavy rains will continue for the next 6-9 hours.

Cyclone Michaung - First Storm Of This Year Over Bay To Strike Indian Coast

Cyclone Michaung over the southwest Bay of Bengal has moved northwest and intensified into a severe cyclonic storm. The storm is likely to track more northward and move to west-central and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal in the next 12 hr. The storm has already crossed east abeam Chennai and Tirupathi and will reach east of Nellore by early evening today. Moving further northward, the storm is bracing the Andhra Coast and is heading for Bapatla and Machilipatnam. All this while, the cyclone is moving dangerously close to the coast, ravaging on and off-shore areas. Coastal inundation, tall storm surge, blinding rains with gale winds disrupting rail, road and air traffic, uprooting and felling trees and damaging the transmission lines will become the soar points of the storm.

This is the 4^th storm of this year over the Bay of Bengal. Earlier, two tropical storms formed over the Arabian Sea as well and the first one Biparjoy, struck Gujarat near Naliya on 16th June 2023. BoB storms headed for far eastern coasts with the first storm Mocha hitting Myanmar, near Sittwe on 14th May 2023. Cyclone Hamoon and Midhili formed in post-monsoon and both struck Bangladesh, near Cox’s Bazar in October and November 2023, respectively.

Tropical storm Michaung emerged as a low-pressure area over the South Andaman Sea on 01st Dec and intensified into a cyclonic storm on 03^rdMorning. The storm has followed a peculiar track, maintaining proximity to the coastline of Tamil Nadu first and now bracing South Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Courtesy warm sea surface and light wind shear, the cyclone has become a severe storm and intensifying further. It is likely to reach peak intensity anytime around the evening hours today and slowly drop thereafter.

Last year, around this time, storm Mandous had evolved over the Southwest Bay of Bengal. The storm had weakened before making landfall and crossed the coastline near Chennai as a deep depression on 09th Dec 2022. This storm had moved nearly dead west to meet the coastline head-on. This also had the history of crossing over to the Arabian Sea and intensified again to a tropical storm 07A, as announced by JTWC. The current storm, Michaung is travelling parallel to the coastline of North Tamil Nadu and South Coastal Andhra Pradesh. The northeast-southwest orientation of the coastline will intercept this storm, somewhere between Bapatla and Machilipatnam. The landfall is likely tomorrow anytime between 0900-1100hr near Bapatla. The storm will weaken after the landfall and take a recurved path, moving northeastward, once again parallel to the coastline of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Such systems do have a history of reemerging again over the Bay of Bengal and strengthening. However, that may not be true for this storm. The storm will weaken significantly after 6th December. Remnant energy may not suffice to make a comeback and the leftover system may get filled up over interior parts of Odisha.

Cyclone Michaung causes massive deluge in Chennai as hefty rains wreak havoc

Cyclone Michaung in the Bay of Bengal has now become a severe storm and is expected to make landfall over the coastal Andhra Pradesh region between Kavali and Machilipatnam by tomorrow morning.
As the cyclone moves closer to the coast, it has resulted in heavy rainfall activity over many parts of Tamil Nadu including the city of Chennai.

So much so that Chennai has recorded over 200 mm of rainfall in both the observatories wherein the Meenambakkam Observatory has recorded a whopping 250 mm of rain while the Nungambakkam has witnessed 230 mm of rain in just 24 hours. These heavy rainfall activities have resulted in waterlogging, and inundation along with massive traffic chaos including, rail, air and road traffic. Due to these rainfall activities, schools, colleges as well as government offices have already been declared closed and employees from private companies have been requested to work from home. Train cancellations were seen along with which 12 domestic and four international flights have been so far cancelled.

The cyclone continues to be in favourable environmental conditions and is expected to give more rainfall activity over the coastal regions. With this, the city of Chennai is still expected to record heavy rainfall activities today. In fact, in just about 3 hours, Nungambakkam observatory has already recorded 82 mm of rain while Meenambakkam has seen 67 mm of rains. While the storm has moved away from Chennai and is moving towards Andhra Pradesh and will cross the coast tomorrow, cloud bands continue to be over Chennai resulting in heavier showers.

So far, the Nungambakkam Observatory of Chennai has already recorded 528 mm of rainfall which is more than double its monthly mean for November.

We do expect hefty rains, strong winds, uprooting of trees and transmission poles, along with air, rail and road traffic chaos, resulting in further delays and cancellations across.

Cyclone Michaung Becomes Severe Storm, Heads For Andhra Pradesh

Cyclonic storm ‘Michaung’ over southwest Bay of Bengal (BoB) has intensified further to a severe cyclonic storm. The storm has moved north-northwest with a speed of about 10kmh, during past 6 hours. It is centered around 13.5°N and 81.2°E today morning. It has already crossed east abeam Chennai and is now positioned about 120km east-northeast of Chennai. The cyclone will start moving more of northward and closing in the South Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

As the storm has tracked nearly parallel to the Coromandal Coast, extremely heavy rains were lashed over north coastal Tamil Nadu and extreme south coast of Andhra Pradesh. Official observatory of Chennai, Nungambakkam recorded 230mm and the airport observatory Meenambakkam, still ahead, measured 250mm rainfall in the past 24hours, ending 8.30 a.m today morning. Heavy rainfall continues. Nellore in Andhra Pradesh was also deluged with 195mm of rainfall during this period.

The storm is still having favourable environmental conditions with fairly warm sea surface and low wind shear. However, the northward track of the storm will bring it closer to the land and therefore increase friction. Michaung is likely to reach its peak intensity during evening hours today, when the winds will be in excess of 110kmph and gusting to about 125kmph in the inner ring of the storm. Thereafter, the entrainment and terrain effect may erode its tight configuration, albeit slowly. The storm will keep heading northward till it crosses the coast tomorrow morning.

The landfall window seems to be anytime between 0900hr and 1100 hr, crossing coast as severe cyclonic storm. Wind speed in association with the severe cyclonic storm range between 89-117kmh. Michaung may lash the coast with 100kmh and gusting to 120kmh. The storm is likely to make landfall between Kavali and Machilipatnam with a likely chance of crossing coast near Bapatla.

The storm will weaken after crossing the coast. However, it will have a tendency to recurve northeastward over land and again move parallel to the coast. With this, it will keep proximity to the Bay of Bengal. The moisture from the water body may sustain the storm for nearly 6-8 hours after the landfall and start weakening rapidly thereafter. Even as weakened depression and low pressure area, moderate to heavy rains, accompanied with squally winds are expected over Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Odisha.

[Hindi] दक्षिणपूर्वी राजस्थान और मध्य प्रदेश में हो सकती है बेमौसम बारिश

पिछले 24 घंटों के दौरान पूर्वी गुजरात और मध्य प्रदेश के कुछ हिस्सों में हल्की बारिश हुई है। देश के मध्य भागों पर एक संगम क्षेत्र बना हुआ है। इसलिए, हमें उम्मीद है कि दक्षिण-पूर्व राजस्थान और मध्य प्रदेश के कुछ हिस्सों में हल्की से मध्यम बारिश और गरज के साथ बौछारें पड़ेंगी। उत्तर पश्चिम से शुष्क हवाएँ या पूर्व और दक्षिण पूर्व से आर्द्र हवा के साथ विलय।

राजस्थान के डूंगरपुर, बांसवाड़ा, प्रतापगढ़, चित्तौड़गढ़, जाहलवाड़, कोटा, बारां, बूंदी और सवाई माधोपुर जैसी जगहों पर अगले 24 घंटों के दौरान बारिश की गतिविधियां हो सकती हैं। इसी तरह मध्य प्रदेश के नीमच, गुना, श्योपुर, ग्वालियर, शिवपुरी, अशोकनगर, टीकमगढ़, रतलाम, उज्जैन और आगरमालवा में भी हल्की बारिश हो सकती है। दरअसल, उत्तर प्रदेश के कुछ हिस्सों जैसे आगरा, फिरोजाबाद, मैनपुरी और इटावा में भी हल्की बारिश हो सकती है।

राजस्थान में 4 दिसंबर तक और मध्य प्रदेश और उत्तर प्रदेश में 5 दिसंबर से मौसम साफ हो जाएगा।

Southeast Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh may receive unseasonal rain

Light rainfall has occurred over parts of East Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh during last 24 hours. A confluence zone is persisting over central parts of the country. Therefore, we expect light to moderate rain and thunderstorm to occur over the southeast Rajasthan and parts of Madhya Pradesh. Dry winds from northwest or merging with humid wind from east and South East.

Places such as Dungarpur, Banswara, Pratapgarh, Chittorgarh, Jahlawar, Kota, Baran, Bundi and Sawai Madhopur in Rajasthan may receive rain activities during the next 24 hours. Similarly, Neemuch, Guna, Sheopur, Gwalior, Shivpuri, Ashoknagar, Tikamgarh, Ratlam, Ujjain and AagrMalwa ine Madhya Pradesh may also witness light rain. In fact, parts of Uttar Pradesh such as Agra, Firozabad, Mainpuri and Etawah may also experience light rain.

Weather will clear up from Rajasthan by December 4th and from Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh from December 5th.

Cyclonic Storm Michaung Forms Over Bay, Heads For Andhra Pradesh

Deep depression over Southwest Bay of Bengal (BoB) has intensified in to a cyclonic storm, named Michaung. Earlier, the deep depression moved consistently northwest and finally upgraded to tropical storm at 5.30 a.m today. Presently, the storm is centered around 11.5 degree North and 82.5degree East, about 350km east-southeast of Chennai.
The convection has deepened further and the curved cloud band have tightly and closely wrapped around the low level cyclonic circulation over that area. Stimulating MJO in Phase 3 has significantly contributed for intensification.

Environment conditions remain favourable for further strengthening and deepening of the storm. There is decent ocean heat content and submissive vertical wind shear over the area of influence. As the system moves further northwest, the proximity of the approaching landmass becomes a concern. Therefore, an explosive intensification is not anticipated.

The tropical storm is closing in to the coast of Tamil Nadu to start with. It is likely to reach east abeam Chennai during late tonight or wee hours tomorrow. Further, the storm will move more of northward, heading for South Coastal Andhra Pradesh. The cyclone will move nearly parallel and dangerously close to the coastline for nearly 24 hours. There is lot of uncertainty and disagreement among the various models about the place and time of landfall. However, the broad consensus suggest the landfall between Nellore and Kakinada, anytime from early morning to forenoon hours on 05th December 2023.

Inclement weather conditions with gale speed winds and blinding rains may prove detrimental for a large stretch from North Tamil Nadu to Coastal Andhra Pradesh, between Puducherry, Chennai, Nellore, Ongole, Kavali, Bapatla, Machilipatnam, Kakinada and Tuni. All precautions, including safe evacuation, need to be in place, tentatively till the morning hours of 06th December 2023.