Cyclone Montha intensifies over Bay of Bengal; northern Tamil Nadu, southern Odisha and Andhra brace for heavy rain

According to satellite imagery updates available with the IMD at 2.30 am on Monday, Cyclone Montha was located 600 km east-southeast of Chennai, 680 km south-southeast of Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, 710 km south-southeast of Visakhapatnam, 790 km west of Port Blair, and 850 km south of Gopalpur in Odisha.

Over the past few hours, the otherwise slow-moving cyclone picked up speed and moved at nearly 16 km/hr on Monday, approaching the Indian mainland quicker.

On Monday, heavy to very heavy rainfall (65-201 mm in 24 hours) is likely to hit the north coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, and all coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh. Extremely heavy rainfall (over 210 mm in 24 hours) is forecast over southern Odisha, Chhattisgarh and coastal Andhra Pradesh Tuesday as the storm approaches closer.

Gangetic West Bengal, Sikkim and Bihar, too, brace for heavy rain as the remnants of the cyclone would then take a northward track after landfall, the IMD said.

There are chances of a storm surge over one metre above astronomical tide leading to inundation over the low-lying areas of coastal Andhra Pradesh and Yanam at the time of the cyclone landfall on Tuesday, the IMD said.

The districts expected to experience heavy rain and gale-force winds are as follows:

Andhra Pradesh: Tirupati, Annamayya, Nellore, YSR, Kadapa, Prakasham, Bapatla, Chittoor, Nandyal, Palnadu, Guntur, Krishna, East and West Godavari, Konaseema, Kakinada, Anakapalli, Alluri Seetharamaraju, Visakhapatnam, Eluru, Vizianagaram, Srikakulam, and Parvathi Puram Manyam.

Odisha: Ganjam, Gajapati, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Koraput, Nawarangpur, Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Nuapada, and Boudh.

Cyclone Montha will be the first cyclone likely to make landfall over the Indian landmass this year. Earlier this month, Cyclone Shakti developed off the Gujarat coast in the Arabian Sea, but it moved away from the Indian coast.