Rain, Winds@40Kmph To Lash Khurda, Puri & Nayagarh This Afternoon

Bhubaneswar: With Cyclone Montha nearing the coast, the India Meteorological Department has issued an orange warning for three districts of Odisha till 2.06 pm on Tuesday.

Thundershowers along with lightning and wind speed reaching 40 kmph may occur at a few places in Khurda, Nayagarh, and Puri districts in the next 3 hours.

The state capital of Bhubaneswar has been experiencing intermittent rains since last night.

According to the MeT office, the severe cyclonic storm moved north-northwestwards with a speed of 12 kmph during past 6 hours and lay centered at 8.30 am, about 160 km south-southeast of Machilipatnam (Andhra Pradesh), 240 km south-southeast of Kakinada (Andhra Pradesh), 320 km south-southwest of Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) and 530 km south-southwest of Gopalpur (Odisha).

It will continue to move north-northwestwards and cross Andhra Pradesh coast between Machilipatnam and Kalingapatnam around Kakinada this evening as a severe cyclonic storm, packing a maximum sustained wind speed of 90-100 kmph gusting to 110 kmph.

The storm is likely to trigger very heavy to extremely heavy rainfall in Odisha coast for two days. Red and orange warning has been issued for for the districts of Koraput, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Nabarangpur, Kalahandi, Ganjam, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Khurda, Puri, Nayagarh, Nuapada, Balangir and Sonepur on October 28-29.