Mumbai and its surrounding areas have been put on high alert, as Cyclone Nisarga is expected to make landfall today.
The cyclone, which lands in Alibaug, will then move towards Mumbai and then move into the interiors and head northwards, Windy.com, a weather forecast website suggests.
All you need to do is type your city on the search bar, and you will get a detailed live tracker on the cyclone's movement for the next few days. For example, if you live in Mumbai, type Mumbai; if you live in Navi Mumbai, check how the cyclone is going to affect your area.
A deeper study into the website will also show you wind speeds, and from the looks of the information gathered by the team at wind.com, the maximum wind gust speeds that will hit Mumbai will be 116 km/h. In comparison, the wind gust speeds in Cyclone Amphan that hit the east coast were around 180 km/h.
Screenshot of the respective wind speeds | Windy.com
There have been forwards doing the rounds requesting people to expect a power failure and lack of internet services due to the cyclone. The fear that Mumbai may become another Kolkata has caused panic, and given the visuals that India witnessed a fortnight ago, some will argue that the panic is justified.
The storm surge is expected to be one to two metres above the astronomical tide and is very likely to inundate low-lying areas of Mumbai, Thane and Raigad districts at the time of landfall, according to IMD officials.
Palghar, Pune, Thane, Mumbai, Raigad, Dhule, Nandurbar, and Nashik are expected to receive heavy rainfall on Wednesday.
The cyclone is expected to make landfall just 110km north of Mumbai on June 3, and is likely to trigger flash floods all along Maharashtra's coast, including in the metropolitan region. Wind speeds could reach 115kmph, with gales of up to 125kmph, said officials.
Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, said, "Cyclone Nisarga is about to scrape around Mumbai on June 3. If that happens, it will be the first-ever cyclone in recorded history to hit the Maharashtra coast in June." The reason for Mumbai’s low risk lies in the weather dynamics of the Arabian Sea. On average, the sea sees one or two cyclonic formations every year — far fewer than in the Bay of Bengal, according to experts.
