Threat averted: Nilofar whittling down before coastal crossing

Cyclone weakens to ‘cyclonic storm’, will die down completely some 300km from Badin.

KARACHI:

Weather officials on Thursday downgraded tropical cyclone Nilofar by several notches, reclassifying it as a ‘cyclonic storm’ that will dissipate somewhere near Badin by Friday evening.

As such, Nilofar will not hit any part of the coast, not even in India, the Met department and other officials said. The whole system will die down completely by Saturday, they added.

“The severe tropical cyclone Nilofar in the Arabian Sea has weakened rapidly and converted into a ‘cyclonic storm,” the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) said on its website. “The cyclonic storm is likely to further weaken into a ‘depression’ over the waters in Northeast Arabian Sea, near the coast of Lower Sindh (Thatta) and Indian Gujarat on Friday [today] evening/night,” it added.

Widespread rain and thundershowers with isolated heavy falls and strong gusty winds are expected in Lower Sindh and the adjoining coast of Lasbella from Thursday night till Saturday, it said.

“We predict Karachi and Hyderabad will receive up to 30 millimetres of rain. Thatta, Sujawal and Badin will receive moderate showers or up to 40mm of rain, rather than the heavy rains expected earlier,” the director of the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre, Abdul Qayyum Bhutto, told The Express Tribune.

“The rains will start Friday [today] morning and come to an end on Saturday… the storm will not even hit Gujarat [in India] and end some 300 kilometres away from Badin,” he said.

Meanwhile, meteorological officials said sea conditions along Pakistan’s coast are likely to remain ‘rough to very rough’ till Saturday. It advised the fishermen of Sindh and Balochistan not to venture into the sea till then.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 31^st, 2014.