South coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema are very likely to receive light to moderate rainfall in most places on Thursday under the impact of Cyclone Nivar, which made a landfall near Puducherry between 11.30 pm and 2.30 am on Thursday morning. The IMD in its bulletin issued at 7.50 am, Thursday, warned that many places would witness heavy to very heavy rainfall at a few places with isolated extremely heavy falls likely to occur over Chittoor, Kurnool, Prakasam and Kadapa districts of Andhra Pradesh and adjoining southeast Telangana on Thursday.
“One or two places are very likely to receive heavy to very heavy and extreme rainfall under its impact in the next 24 hours,” said Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Hyderabad scientist K Nagaratna. She observed that south Telangana, particularly the districts of Mahabubnagar, Gadwal, Wanaparthy, Nagarkurnool, Narayanpet, Nalgonda and Suryapet are very likely to receive light to moderate rains in most parts, with one or two places receiving heavy to very heavy and extreme rainfall.
Nagaratna said that Cyclone Nivar weakend into a cyclonic storm with wind speed of 100-110 kmph gusting to 120 kmph and it will further weaken in the next six hours. The IMD however advised fishermen against venturing into the sea for four days.
“Squally wind speed reaching 45-55 kmph gusting to 65 kmph along and off Andhra Pradesh coast and adjoining west central Bay of Bengal during next six hours and gradual decrease thereafter. Sea condition is very high to phenomenal, along and off south coastal Andhra Pradesh.”
IMD predicted that the sea condition will gradually become rough to very rough by Thursday noon of November 26 and improve further by the evening. Meanwhile, 17 mandals in Chittoor have been identified as the most vulnerable to the impact of Nivar. Varadaiahpalem, Nagalapuram, Satyavedu, KVB Puram, Nagari, bordering Tamil Nadu, were expected to witness incessant rains.
The state government has already taken several precautionary steps and has also deployed disaster management teams on the ground.