Cyclone Fengal to make landfall by November 30 evening; heavy rainfall lashes Chennai
The cyclonic storm Fengal over southwest Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 12 kmph during the past six hours and lay centred over the same region on Saturday.
Weather prediction map
CHENNAI:The weather department has issued red alert warning extremely heavy rains for seven coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, including Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, and Chengalpattu on Saturday. These districts have been experiencing heavy rain from Friday night under the influence of the Cyclone Fengal.
Several areas in Chennai, including Velachery, Madipakkam, Alandur, Porur, Egmore, Anna Salai, Manali, and Ennore received intense spells from last night, which led to water logging in various parts of the city.
According to the Greater Chennai Corporation’s rainfall data, Kathivakkam recorded 68.4 mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours ending at 6 am on November 30. The other areas in the city received moderate rainfall between 15.6 mm and 64.4 mm. Tiruvottriyur and Basin Bridge received 48.9 mm rainfall each, followed by Tondiarpet (46.5 mm) and Manali and New Manali Town with 42.9 mm and 42.2 mm, respectively.
The cyclonic storm Fengal that formed over southwest Bay of Bengal moved west-northwestwards with a speed of 12 kmph and lay centred over the same region on Saturday morning. It is about 150 km east of Puducherry, 140 km southeast of Chennai, 210 km northeast of Nagapattinam and 400 km north of Trincomalee.
The cyclone is likely to move nearly westwards and cross north Tamil Nadu-Puducherry coasts between Karaikal and Mahabalipuram close to Puducherry as a cyclonic storm with a wind speed of 70 kmph -80 kmph gusting to 90 kmph on Saturday evening, the weather department said.
Under its influence, extremely heavy rain is likely to occur over Chennai, Tiruvallur, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, Villupuram, Kallakurichi, and Cuddalore districts of Tamil Nadu. Red alerts have been issued for these seven districts.
An orange alert was issued for Ranipet, Tiruvannamalai, Vellore, Perambalur, Ariyalur, Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Mayiladuthurai, and Nagapattinam districts predicting very heavy rain.
Similarly, Tirupattur, Krishnagiri, Dharmapuri, Salem, Namakkal, Tiruchy, Pudukkottai, and Karur are likely to witness heavy rain in the next 24 hours.
Meanwhile, the Chennai corporation has intensified the flood mitigation work by pumping out rainwater from the road using tractor motor and 100 HP motor pumps.