Cyclone Asani live updates: Cyclone won’t make landfall in Odisha or AP but move parallel to coast
Cyclone Asani live updates: In a big relief to the people and administration, the IMD on Saturday announced that the cyclonic storm brewing in the Bay of Bengal will not make landfall in either Odisha or Andhra Pradesh, but will move parallel to the coast. The system, which has turned into a deep depression over Southeast Bay of Bengal and the adjoining Andaman Sea, is likely to intensify into a cyclonic storm on Sunday morning.
It lay centred about 280 km west-northwest of Car Nicobar (Nicobar Islands), 290 km southwest of Port Blair (Andaman Islands), 1140 km southeast of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and 1180 km south-southeast of Puri (Odisha) at 5:30 pm on Saturday, the IMD said. It is set to recurve and move towards northwest Bay of Bengal after nearing the North Andhra-Odisha coast, India Meteorological Department (IMD) DG Mrutyunjay Mohapatra told PTI.
It will be the year’s first cyclonic storm to develop in the North Indian Ocean region, which includes the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. In March this year, a system that had formed in the Bay of Bengal had strengthened up to a deep depression — one stage short of forming a cyclone. But since the system did not intensify into a storm then, the name Asani was not officially used. The name will now be assigned to the newest storm brewing off India’s east coast.
