To intensify into very severe cyclonic storm on Oct 10
To hit AP, Odisha coast on Oct 12 noon
The India Meteorological Department (IMD)’s Director General lS Rathore on Wednesday afternoon said the cyclonic storm Hudhud would be of lesser intensity than Phailin that had hit the Odisha coast just a year ago on the same October 12.
An evening bulletin of the IMD Bhubaneswar said the Hudhud is moving closer to the Odisha-Andhra coast. It lay at a distance of 1010 km from Gopalpur by 2.30 pm on Wednesday. “It (Hudhud) is not as severe as Phalian, but it is in the same category,” Rathore said at a Press conference in New Delhi. He also informed mediapersons that the wind speed had reached about 210 km per hour during the Phailin whereas the Hudhud’s speed is likely to be in the range of about 140 km per hour, gusting up to 155 km this time.
“It will cross the east coast between Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Gopalpur in Odisha at the noon of October 12,” Rathore said, adding, “No landfall point of the cyclone has been zeroed in so far and it is likely to remain over sea.”
IMD sources said the Hudhud crossed the area between Port Blair and long Island of the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago on Wednesday with winds gusting at 67 kmph.
The IMD release said the severe cyclonic storm would take the form of very severe cyclonic storm gusting up to 125 kmph on October 10. Heavy rainfall-to-very heavy rainfall would take place at a few places of Visakhapatnam, Vijayanagaram and Srikakulam districts of north coastal Andhra and Ganjam, Puri and Khordha districts of Odisha from October 11, it added. Meanwhile, the Bhubaneswar Met office advised hoisting of storm warning of distant cautionary signal number two (DC-II) by replacing the earlier distant warning signal number one (DW-I) at Paradip and Gopalpur Ports.