Cyclone Michaung likely to form on Dec 3; orange alert issued for North coastal districts of TN

CHENNAI: The well-marked low-pressure area intensified into depression on Friday. The system is likely to concentrate into a cyclonic storm Michaung in the next 48 hours and make landfall between Chennai and Machilipatnam on December 4. The Regional Meteorological Centre (RMC) has issued an orange alert for coastal districts of Tamil Nadu predicting very heavy rain on December 3 and 4.

The depression over southwest Bay of Bengal will further intensify into a deep depression in the next 24 hours. A cyclonic storm will form over the same region on December 3. It would move northwestwards and reach near south Andhra Pradesh and adjoining north Tamil Nadu coasts by Monday afternoon. Later, the system will move northwards almost parallel to south Andhra Pradesh coast on December 5 between Nellore and Machilipatnam as a cyclonic storm with a wind speed of 80 kmph -90 kmph gusting to 100 kmph.

Under its influence, heavy to very heavy rain along with thunderstorm activity is predicted over Chennai, Thiruvallur, Chengalpattu, Kancheepuram, Tiruvannamalai, Tirupathur, Ranipet and Vellore districts of Tamil Nadu on Sunday and Monday. The other districts of coastal and delta districts are likely to get heavy rain for the next three days.

On Thursday, several districts witnessed intense rain in Tamil Nadu. The highest amount of rainfall was recorded at Ambattur in Chennai, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore, Erode districts with 5 cm each. Followed by Mayiladathurai 4 cm of rainfall, and Chengalpattu, Madurai, Ramanathapuram, Kancheepuram received 3 cm rainfall each. During the northeast monsoon from October 1 to December 1, Tamil Nadu recorded 334 mm of rainfall against its average rainfall of 356 mm which is a 6 percent deficit.