Cyclone ‘Phethai’ was located on Sunday evening at 510 km away from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh where it is likely to make a landfall on Monday afternoon. It may briefly intensify as a severe cyclone just ahead of landfall.

The cyclone lay closest to Chennai by Sunday evening, but moved further away towards the North Andhra Pradesh coast, as per the India Met Department (IMD) assessment.

The North Tamil Nadu coast, including Chennai, will witness a cyclone bypass, similar to the one exactly a month ago when cyclone ‘Gaja’ passed to its South, denying it the badly-needed rains.

The 24-hour period ending Sunday morning saw rain at isolated places over Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. Dry weather prevailed over Kerala, Lakshadweep, Karnataka and Rayalaseema.

The North Tamil Nadu coast can hope for ‘Phethai’ to intensify into a severe cyclone during the intervening night of Sunday-Monday and send its rain bands extending briefly into the region.

On Monday, the landfall of the cyclone may bring heavy to very heavy rain at a few places over coastal Andhra Pradesh with extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places over coastal Andhra Pradesh, North Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

High winds

Heavy to very heavy rain has been forecast at isolated places over Odisha while it will be heavy over south Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and the plains of Bengal as remnants of the cyclone careens to the north-north-east.

Gale winds with speed upto 90 km/hr gusting to 100 km/hr may prevail along and off Central Coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam. Wind speed upto 70 km/hr gusting to 80 km/hr are forecast along and off parts of Coastal Andhra Pradesh.

In comparison, squally winds with speed reaching upto 50 km/hr gusting to 60 km/hr are forecast along and off the North Tamil Nadu and Puducherry coasts while it would upto 40 km/hr gusting to 50 km/hr along and off the south Odisha coast.