Cylone Gulab: Heavy rain alert across Maharashtra

Cyclone Gulab is likely to move nearly westwards and cross north Andhra Pradesh, south Odisha coasts between Kalingapatnam and Gopalpur. It will travel at a maximum sustained wind speed of 75-85 kmph gusting to 95 kmph around midnight on Sunday.

Follow live updates | Cyclone Gulab

Cyclone Gulab will begin its landfall process around Sunday evening, the India Meteorological Department said in its latest bulletin.

As per the forecast, Chandrapur is under red alert on Monday, indicating extremely heavy rainfall over the district. For Monday, Mumbai and neighbouring districts Thane, Palghar and 17 other districts are likely to receive heavy rainfall, accompanied by gusty winds, thunderstorms and lightning in the ghat area.

For Monday, 11 districts— Raigad, Ratnagiri, Pune, Satara, Nasik, Parbhani, Latur, Hingoli, Nanded, Yavatmal, Gadchiroli— are under orange alert indicating heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places and thunderstorms in ghat areas.

As the cyclonic storm is projected to move westwards after weakening to a deep depression and depression over the next two days, the intensity of rain is likely to increase over the Konkan and Madhya Maharashtra districts on Tuesday.

The IMD has forecast extremely heavy rain at isolated places on Tuesday in Palghar, Thane and Raigad and are under red alert. Mumbai along with Ratnagiri, Nashik, Pune, Ahmednagar are under orange alert on Tuesday, indicating heavy to very heavy rain at isolated places.

This is the third cyclone of 2021 after Tauktae and Yaas. Cyclone data between 1990 and 2021 show that only 14 cyclones developed during September, with just three storms between 2011 and 2021 (excluding the Cyclone Gulab).