A Maiden tropical storm of post-monsoon 2024 Dana, struck the coastline of Odisha at the designated place, close to Dhamra, between Paradip and Balasore. The cyclone hit the coast as a severe cyclonic storm, quite late in the night and rather wee hours of 25th October early morning. The landfall process, as it happens, continued for nearly five hours. The cyclone has weakened to a tropical storm, centred around 21.2°N and 86.7°E, nearly 50km northwest of Dhamra. The landfall process has since been completed.
The storm will continue to move northwest for another 12 hours across North Odisha and then take a westward and slight west-southwest track. It is likely to weaken to a deep depression by evening, today. The weather system is still packed with strong winds of the order of about 75-85km/h and is likely to reduce as the day progresses. Possibly, by late evening and early night, it may weaken to a depression/well-marked low-pressure area.
The cyclone has lashed the coastal parts with gale winds and very heavy rainfall. Chandbali has recorded the highest rainfall of 159mm in the past 24 hours. The other stations getting heavy rains were Balasore, Paradip, Puri, Kendrapara and Bhadrak. Heavy rainfall belt will move to cover the interior parts of Odisha like, Angul, Rourkela, Balangir, Titlagarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhargarh, Sambalpur and Deogarh.
As it happens in the cloud configuration of these storms, the right forward section moved over southern parts of Gangetic West Bengal. Moderate to heavy rains have impacted many stations. The capital city Kolkata has been experiencing non-stop heavy rains, since late last night. The city observatory at Alipore has already gathered over 100 mm of rainfall and still continuing. The other locations for heavy rains in the next 8-10 hours will include 24 South Pargana, Howrah, Hooghly, Kharagpur, Midnapur ( east & west ), Kalaikunda, Panagarh, Burdwan and Purulia.
The storm will weaken considerably over the next 24 hours. The weather conditions will improve substantially. Parts of Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh will have light rainfall over the next 48 hours. Strong winds are not likely. Light to moderate rainfall can further travel to reach parts of Maharashtra and East Madhya Pradesh, as well.
