NEW DELHI/MACHILIPATNAM: Baaz isn't moving. The first cyclone with a moniker to hit any Indian coast, remained stationary on Thursday evening and lay centred about 400 km East South East of Chennai, according to Y Karunakar Reddy, Director, Cyclone Detection Radar, in Machilipatnam.
Reddy said that the storm would intensify further and move in a West-North Westerly direction and cross extreme North Tamil Nadu and South Coastal Andhra Pradesh, between Machilipatnam-Chennai by the morning of Saturday.
Meanwhile, thousands of people along the southern coast have been evacuated, said Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) officials.
"We are expecting heavy and very heavy rains accompanied by strong winds of 70 to 80 km per hour speed to hit the coastal areas," said S C Bhan, director of IMD. While the cyclonic storm is not expected to last long after landfall, the heavy rains are likely to linger.
What to expect?
Gales reaching a speed of 80-90 kmph were likely to commence along and off the coast from Friday afternoon or night. State of the sea would be high to very high.
Cautionary signal number three had been hoisted at south coastal ports and fishermen had been advised not to venture into the sea until Saturday.
Rain, thundershowers and heavy to very heavy rainfall expected at one or two places over north coastal Tamil Nadu, Nellore, Prakasam, Guntur and Krishna districts of south coastal AP during the next 48 hours.
