Gujarat likely to receive heavy rain today, tomorrow; cyclone progress in line with forecast: MET Director, Ahmedabad

Gujarat [India], June 16 : The MET Director of Ahmedabad, Manorama Mohanty, said that Gujarat is likely to experience heavy rainfall today and tomorrow, as Cyclone Biparjoy weakens into a deep depression over the Saurashtra-Kutch region.

At a press conference, she talked about the rainfall and sea condition predictions for the next two days in light of the landfall of the cyclone on Thursday night.

"The Severe Cyclonic Storm Biparjoy has weakened into a Cyclonic storm, and by evening it is likely to become a deep depression", she said.

IMD, in their most recent Twitter update, said that the cyclone is now 40 km from Bhuj and is likely to become a depression around Friday night.

The tweet read, "CS BIPARJOY at 1130IST of today and lay near lat 23.6N and long 69.8E, about 40km N of Bhuj and 250 km WSW of Deesa. Likely to weaken further into a deep depression over Saurashtra & Kutch around night of today."

The MET Director gave updates regarding rainfall predictions in Gujarat.

"Because of the storm, the Saurashtra-Katch region and the heavily affected district will experience heavy-extremely heavy rainfall, along with Patan and Banaskantha districts. There is a possibility of heavy to very heavy rains in Dwarka, Jamnagar, and Morbi. There may be heavy rains in many districts including Porbandar, and Rajkot. All in all, the entirety of Gujarat is likely to have rain today."

"Extremely Heavy rain is likely in Kutch, Patan, Mehsana, and Banaskantha tomorrow", she added.

Regarding sea conditions, she said, "The Arabian Sea is likely to remain very disturbed for a while, with high wind speeds. Port warnings and fishermen warnings have been given."

She also provided insight regarding the duration of Cyclone Biparjoy.

"The duration of a cyclone is measured from depression to depression. If the depression is formed by today evening, the cyclone will have moved across the Arabian Sea for around 10 days."

She emphasised that the forecast by the meteorological department had been well in advance and had turned out accurate, which was able to aid the Government and the authorities immensely.

"The cyclone path, wind speed intensity and impact have gone exactly as predicted by us. IMD provided regular briefings and information to the Government regarding the cyclone's movement, wind speed and other forecasts. The Gujarat Government applied this information well and effectively prevented casualties", she said.

Meanwhile, Mumbai IMD scientist Sushma Nair told ANI, "On Thursday evening, Biparjoy made landfall over the Gujarat Saurashtra coast. Mumbai has been experiencing very high temperatures because of the effect of cyclonic winds. Now, slowly the southwest-westerly winds will take over so the temperature in Mumbai should come down to the range of 33-35 degrees. Light rains will be brought by westerly winds along the western coast."

The IMD official said the steady onset of the southwest-westerly winds will bring rain to the Konkan coast.

"They will help in bringing light to moderate rainfall over the Konkan coast. That is the prediction we have given for the next four to 5 days along the coast. We are expecting maybe a little more rain in South Konkan and are also expecting rain in North Konkan", she said.