IMD Alerts: Cyclone Gulab to bring heavy rainfall in 13 states, UTs from tomorrow

The IMD has issued a cyclonic alert in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha, while forecasting heavy rainfall in their neighbouring states such as Telangana and West Bengal, respectively.

The deep depression over Bay of Bengal has intensified into a Cyclonic storm Gulab, and now lies about 370 km east-southwest of Odisha’s Gopalpur and 440km east of Kalingapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, according to the latest update by the India Meteorological Department (IMD) bulletin. It said that the moved nearly westwards with a speed of 7 km/hour in the last six hours to intensify into the cyclonic storm.

A heavy rainfall alert has been issued in West Bengal due to the expected landfall of Cyclone Gulab on Sunday evening.

Earlier in the day, cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba chaired a meeting of the National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) in order to review the preparedness of the various agencies and the state governments of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to combat the approaching cyclone. As many as 18 teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been collectively deployed in the two states where a cyclone alert has also been issued by the IMD. The director-general of NDRF Satya Pradhan said that 13 teams – with 24 sub-teams, were deployed in Odisha while the remaining five teams of the national force have been deployed in the southern state.

Apart from these three states, nine other states and one Union territory will be affected by Cyclone Gulab, which is expected to make landfall on Sunday evening.

Here are the latest IMD alerts on 13 states and UTS for Cyclone Gulab:

1. Light to moderate rainfall at a majority of the places with a downpour in a few and extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places is very likely over south Odisha north coastal Andhra Pradesh on September 26

2. The IMD bulletin said that heavy to very heavy rain is expected over Telangana, while very heavy rainfall is likely over Chhattisgarh on September 26.

3. Maharashtra's Vidarbha and north Chhattisgarh will witness light to moderate rainfall at most places with heavy to very heavy, and extremely heavy rain at isolated places. Telangana, Odisha and Maharashtra's Marathwada are expected to see heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places, while coastal West Bengal will likely witness isolated heavy rainfall at isolated places on September 27.

4. The IMD bulletin also stated that fairly widespread to widespread rainfall with isolated heavy rain is likely over east Rajasthan, west Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Konkan and Goa till September 30. Isolated very heavy rainfall is likely over north-central Maharashtra and southwest Madhya Pradesh on September 28 and Gujarat on September 28 and 29.

5. Cyclone Gulab will also impact and increase rainfall activity over Kerala and Puducherry’s Mahe with fairly widespread to widespread rainfall and isolated heavy falls from today onwards, and Lakshadweep from September 26 onwards.