Cyclone Jawad, maiden cyclone of current northeast monsoon season, has now weakened to a low pressure area. Remnants of the storm now lie over Bangladesh and adjoining South Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura. It is likely to weaken further in the next 24hr and finally get filled up in the subsequent 24hr over the same area.
Cyclone Jawad, spared fury and weakened substantially before reaching the proximity of coastline. With this, the storm upheld 130 years old record of not striking Odisha coast in the month of December. The cyclone did come dangerously close and threatened to rip through the coast, but timely averted the scare. Cyclone Jawad recurved to steer away from the coast on the penultimate day, 04Dec2021.
While turning, the storm kept brushing most cities along the coast and dumped heavy to very heavy rains at few places. Gopalpur, Puri, Paradip and Bhubaneswar were among the prominent places getting battered with heavy rains and strong winds. The worst struck location was Paradip, where it dumped all time heaviest rainfall of 201mm in 24hr on 05thDecember. Actually, it equalled the earlier and similar record established on 09Dec 1973. State capital Bhubaneswar and the coastal towns of Gopalpur, Chandbali created fresh rainfall records of the last 10years.
Weakened storm as depression and well marked low pressure area also travelled across West Bengal. State capital observatory at Alipore, crashed the earlier 24 hr rainfall record with a fresh spate of 75mm on 05Dec2021. Few other deep inland locations like Midnapore and Burdwan were deluged with a record 92mm and 128mm. Even Diamond Harbour and Digha breached their earlier 24hr rainfall with a fresh downpour of 47mm and 53mm respectively.
The weakened storm has gone past West Bengal and swamped Bangladesh with similar rain bursts, causing localized flooding. The residual storm as a low pressure area is likely to move over broad area covering South Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram in the next 12hr. Moderate to heavy rain and thundershowers are expected lasting till tomorrow morning. Substantial weakening in the next 24hr and subsequent filling up over the same area is expected.
