Bhubaneswar: Very Severe Cyclonic Storm ‘Arnab’ moved west-northwestwards at a speed of 18 kmph over the past six hours and lay over the westcentral Bay of Bengal at 1430 hours IST on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
The storm was centred near latitude 16.2°N and longitude 83.3°E, about 140 km southeast of Kakinada, 170 km south of Visakhapatnam, 230 km east of Machilipatnam, 300 km east-northeast of Bapatla in Andhra Pradesh and 380 km south-southwest of Gopalpur in Odisha, according to the IMD’s latest bulletin issued at 1430 hours IST on October 27.
The cyclone is very likely to move nearly west-northwestwards over the next few hours before turning northwestwards, and cross the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, close to south of Yanam, by the forenoon of October 28.
The system is expected to make landfall as a very severe cyclonic storm, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 125-135 kmph, gusting to 150 kmph, the IMD said.
