Cyclone Asna: Red alert for Karnataka, IMD forecasts heavy rain for Gujarat

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued a ‘red alert’ for coastal Karnataka in response to the rare Cyclone Asna threat, forecasting very heavy rain for Gujarat on Saturday, August 31.

The cyclone building up over Gujarat’s Saurashtra-Kutch region is unusual for this time of year. It is projected to move into the Arabian Sea and head towards Oman.

Pakistan proposed the name Cyclone Asna as the storm intensified. Between 1891 and 2023, only three such storms have formed over the Arabian Sea in August with instances recorded in 1976, 1964, and 1944, reported English Jagran.

The 1976 storm originated in Odisha, moved west-northwest into the Arabian Sea, circled and eventually weakened near Oman’s coast. Similarly, the 1944 storm intensified after reaching the Arabian Sea before losing strength. In 1964, a brief storm developed off the South Gujarat coast but weakened near the shoreline, the report said.

Cyclone Asna, which Pakistan has named, is the first cyclonic storm to develop in the Arabian Sea in August since 1976. The storm is now advancing west-northwest, moving away from the Indian coast.

In the past 6 hours, the deep depression over the Kachchh coast, parts of Pakistan, and the northeast Arabian Sea has been moving westward at 6 kilometres per hour. It has intensified into Cyclone Asna and was located around 11:30 AM at the same spot, approximately 190 kilometres west-northwest of Bhuj, Gujarat, according to the IMD.

Wind speeds in a deep depression vary from 52 to 61 kmph, whereas cyclones have wind speeds between 63 and 87 kmph.

How rain wreaks havoc in Gujarat?

In Gujarat, recent rainfall has caused the loss of 26 lives over the past four days. Over 18,000 individuals have been evacuated, and around 1,200 people have been rescued from areas severely impacted by flooding.

Although rainfall decreased across most of Gujarat by Friday morning, officials reported significant waterlogging in several towns and villages due to overflowing rivers.

The State Emergency Operations Centre (SEOC) noted that between 6 am and 2 pm, only four locations in the state received 15 mm to 26 mm of rain, while other areas experienced either dry conditions or light showers.