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Cyclone 'Gaja', which lies over West-Central and adjoining East-Central and South-East Bay of Bengal, has started shifting track, orienting itself towards the Tamil Nadu coast hundreds of kilometres away.
India Met Department (IMD) has located the cyclone to 730 km east-north-east of Chennai and 820 km eastnorth-east of Nagapattinam, respectively to the North and South along the Tamil Nadu coast.
Nagapattinam target?
IMD has maintained its outlook for further movement of the system to the west-south-west and its intensification likely towards this evening and stay as such until tomorrow evening. Thereafter, while continuing to move west-south-west, it may weaken a round to being a conventional cyclone and cross the coast between Nagapattinam and Chennai by Thursday morning.
The US Joint Typhoon Warning Centre has suggested that the landfall could happen more towards the South of both Chennai and Puducherry, and hints Nagapattinam and neighbourhood as the target area.
But it doubted the prospects of the cyclone weakening on hitting the home stretch, and suggested that it could pack peak winds of 111 km/hr gusting to 138 km/hr at the time of landfall.
The US National Weather Centre sees the remnant of 'Gaja' crossing the South Peninsula and entering the Arabian Sea off Kerala-Karnataka and regaining traction for sometime.
A weather tracker employed by it is of the view that 'Gaja' could likely set a trend for the Bay waters to get surfed up by a follow-up weather system or two over the next 10 to 15 days.
Rain outlook for TN
According to IMD, North Coastal Tamil Nadu (including Chennai) and adjoining South Coastal Andhra Pradesh may start receiving rains generated by severe cyclone 'Gaja' from Wednesday evening.
Most places along the stretch would receive rain with heavy rain likely at isolated places, before the intensity of rainfall picks up on Thursday even as a weakened cyclone approaches the coast.
During this phase, most places along North Tamil Nadu may receive rain with very to heavy heavy rain at a few places, while it will be extremely heavy (20 cm and above) at isolated places.
Rainfall at most places with very to very heavy falls is also indicated for South Coastal Tamil Nadu, South Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema on Thursday, the day of landfall.
Squally winds with speed reaching 55 km/hr and gusting to 65 km/hr are likely to commence along and off North Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts and South Andhra Pradesh from Wednesday evening.
These could gradually become gale wind speeds reaching 90 km/hr gusting to 100 km/hr along and off North Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts from Wednesday night.
Fishermen, who are in the deep seas, are advised to return home at the earliest. Sea conditions along the coast may turn 'rough' to 'very rough' (wave heights of 8- to 20 ft) and later 'high' (30 ft) into the evening.
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