Sindh coastal areas brace for rainfall as cyclone builds in Arabian Sea
KARACHI: The coastal areas of Sindh, including Karachi, are expected to face a high amount of rainfall due to a cyclone developing in the Arabian Sea.
Pakistani Meteorological Department (PMD) has already issued an alert for a cyclone likely developing in the eastern Arabian Sea. The Met office low air pressure is expected in the southeastern Arabian Sea on the morning of May 14. The weather department said that due to favorable weather conditions, low air pressure may take the form of a tropical cyclone on May 16.
The department maintained that none of Pakistan’s coastal areas is under threat from the developing system but issued directives for fishermen to remain alert and not venture into the deep sea from May 14 onwards.
The tropical cyclone Tauktae (pronounced TAW-tay) has developed in the Arabian Sea and is expected to intensify and could become one of the strongest to threaten parts of western India and eastern Pakistan in more than two decades.
Tropical Cyclone One-A continues to organize in the southeastern Arabian Sea, a couple hundred miles west of southern India’s Kerala coast. Meteorologists refer to this disturbance as Invest 92A, a designation for an area of interest that could develop into a tropical cyclone.
Given an ample supply of warm deep ocean water, humid air and low wind shear, Tauktae could rapidly intensify into the equivalent of a formidable hurricane this weekend.
It is expected to track toward the north-northwest towards the coast of western India this weekend. It may stay clear off the coasts of Kerala, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra states to spare the most severe impacts.
The Indian metropolitan of Mumbai may have a close brush with Tauktae late Sunday night or early Monday. After that, it could eventually threaten India’s Gujarat state and perhaps southeast Pakistan next week.
The cyclone could reach as far north as Karachi, and be the strongest in the area since a May 1999 cyclone made landfall near the India-Pakistan border.
