Pakistan issues red alert over Cyclone Nilofar

The impact of the cyclone in Arabian Sea likely to be felt  mid-week in Sindh coastal belt and adjoining Kutch coast in India’s Gujarat.

Nilofar is expected to bring heavy rainfall in Karachi and other coastal areas of Sindh and Balochistan.

The weather pundits on Sunday predicted that the Nilofar will intensify further into a severe cyclonic storm during the next 24 hours and advised fishermen to return to the coast as the conditions off the coast will likely to be  very rough.

The storm on Tuesday night likely to touch the peak wind speed of 145 kilometer per hour (kmph) and the condition will persist till Wednesday night, reports said.

The deep depression over west-central and adjoining southwest Arabian Sea has intensified into a cyclonic storm Nilofar.

On Sunday evening, Nilofar centered about 1310 kilometers south-southwest of Karachi and 910 km east-southeast of Salalah (Oman).

The cyclonic storm would move initially north-northwestwards during next 48 hours and then re-curve after touching Oman coast northeastwards towards Pakistan coast during subsequent 72 hours.

Pakistan has named the Arabian Sea tropical cyclone as ‘Nilofar’.

Out of the eight countries of the region, it was Pakistan’s turn to name the cyclone. Pakistan named the cyclone as ‘Nilofar’ that was developing off the coast of Oman and it is likely to cause heavy rains in Karachi by the end of this month.

According to the World Meteorological Organization the practice of naming tropical cyclones began years ago in order to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages because names are presumed to be far easier to remember than numbers and technical terms.