Nov cyclone after 67 yrs!

City readies for extraordinary weather with BMC, Traffic Cops, Coast Guard on High alert. Disclaimer: This is a met forecast

City readies for extraordinary weather with BMC, Traffic Cops, Coast Guard on High alert. Disclaimer: This is a met forecast

If the Indian Meteorological Department's cyclone forecast for today is true, it will be the city's first in 67 years.

The MeT sounded a cyclone alert along the coast of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Goa where it is expected to make a landfall this afternnoon.

M L Narvekar, chief officer, disaster management, BMC, said, "The last cyclone Mumbai witnessed was in 1942. In 1972, there was a cyclone alert, but it finally did not take place."

Added Professor Kapil Gupta, IIT, Bombay, "This will be the first major cyclone from the Arabian Sea impacting Mumbai. The cyclone will weaken after 36 hours, but a November cyclone is in the league of the extraordinary."

Meanwhile, Mumbaikars were flooded with text messages from the Mumbai traffic police: "Meteorological department has indicated strong winds and heavy rainfall. Please avoid travelling and take care."



Should you worry?

Professor Gupta added, "Expect trees to be uprooted, expect traffic congestion. Low-lying areas will be flooded. Mumbaikars need to keep themselves updated with weather forecasts."

According to the BMC, there are 240 low-lying areas in Mumbai and six vulnerable areas near the coastline, which include Colaba, Versova, Worli gaothan, JVPD, Rajesh Khanna Gardens Santacruz and Kalina.

Narvekar said, "Our staff at all the 24 ward control rooms are on standby. We have alerted the residents living near coastal areas of possible flooding.

We will provide temporary shelters in our schools if required and our fire brigade is also on alert."

This reporter made a test call to the disaster management cell and the response was heartening.

Signal 5, indicating very high seas have been put up on the ports extending from Gujarat to Goa, including Mumbai. Fishermen are forbidden from venturing out at sea.

Coast Guard officials said the sea conditions would be very rough and waves could rise between 5 and 10 metres. Almost the entire western fleet has been put on high alert for Search and Rescue (SAR) missions.

HIGH ALERT: Coast Guard officials said the sea conditions would be very rough and waves could rise between 5 and 10 metres.

The helicopter squadron has been kept on standby to take off at very short notice.

The Coast Guard has also been coordinating with district authorities to evacuate residents from low-lying areas to safe places.

Surat: Is the eye of the storm

7 am and 7.30 pm: High tides of 3.88 m

1.39 lakh: Fatalities in the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh

75 kmph: Expected windspeed today. On a regular day, windspeed is between 0.8 to 8.8 kmph

$81 billion: The damages from Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, USA

Today's Forecast

Strong gusty winds with thunderstorm and heavy to very heavy rainfall over the next 24 hours. Wind speed is 65 to 75 kmph and rainfall between 12 mm and 24 mm.

Voices

It will be a regular work day. We didn't get any instruction from our office. I will take spare clothes along and if required stay over at a friend's place Amar Chaudhary (25), Engineer, working at BKC

I want to enjoy the weather. I know about the cyclone warning, but I have to step outside, as I have exams next week and will go to a friend's place at Sion to study.

However, I will update myself with weather reports. Hemant Maru (20), Management student, Wadala

Doppler Mia

Four years after the great Mumbai Deluge of July 26, 2005, an advance doppler radar, capable of predicting weather every 15 minutes, lies unused.

Doppler weather radars have an edge over other weather radar systems because they can measure the speed of a storm or cyclone.

The radars the government uses right now provide information only on the range of a storm whereas a Doppler provides data to accurately estimate an approaching storm's eye and intensity, fixing its position and predicting its path.

A "Cyclonic Storm" or a "Cyclone" is an intense vortex or a whirl in the atmosphere with very strong winds circulating around it in anti-clockwise direction in the Northern Hemisphere and in clockwise direction in the Southern Hemisphere.
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The word "Cyclone" is derived from the Greek, word "Cyclos" meaning the coils of a snake. To Henri Peddington, the tropical storms in the Bay of Bengal and in the Arabian Sea appeared like the coiled serpents of the sea and he named these storms as "Cyclones".
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Cyclones are intense low pressure areas - from the centre of which pressure increases outwards- The amount of the pressure drop in the centre and the rate at which it increases outwards gives the intensity of the cyclones and the strength of winds.
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The criteria followed by the Meteorological Department of India to classify the low pressure systems in the Bay of Bengal and in the Arabian Sea as adopted by the World Meteorological Organisation (W.M.O.) are:

Moderate rainfallu00a02.5- 7mm
Heavy 7mm- 12mm
12 24mm very heavy
24mm extremely heavy