Low pressure intensifies into depression

Bhubaneswar: Odisha received heavy rains as a well-marked low pressure area over the Bay of Bengal first intensified into a depression and later into a deep depression on Tuesday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said. The IMD forecast extremely heavy rain for two days in Odisha. The weather office said rough sea conditions will prevail and warned fishermen against venturing into the sea till Wednesday afternoon.

The depression over the northeastern Bay of Bengal moved north-northwestwards at a speed of 25 kmph, intensifying into a deep depression, and lay centred around 160 km east-southeast of Khepupara in Bangladesh and 420 km east of Digha in West Bengal, the IMD said in its bulletin.

''It is likely to move northwestwards and cross the Bangladesh coast east of Khepupara by Tuesday evening and thereafter move west-northwestwards across Gangetic West Bengal in the next 24 hours,'' the bulletin said.

The weather office said under its impact, squally conditions are likely to prevail, with wind speed reaching 45-55 kmph, gusting up to 65 kmph along and off Bangladesh-West Bengal coasts. The wind speed is likely to increase to 55-65 kmph, gusting to 75 kmph over the next 12 hours.

Odisha received heavy rainfall due to the prevailing weather conditions, with Bhubaneswar witnessing a record rainfall of 259.2 mm in the last 24 hours till 8.30 am on Tuesday.

''This was the highest rainfall Bhubaneswar has received in August. It broke the previous record of 254.2 mm of rainfall received on August 20, 1997,'' the Regional Meteorological Centre said.

Meanwhile, the IMD issued a red warning (take action) for four districts, orange (be prepared) for 13 and yellow (be updated) for 10 districts till 8.30 am on August 2.

A red warning has been issued for Angul, Dhenkanal, Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar and an orange warning for Jajpur, Bhadrak, Deogarh, Sambalpur, Sonepur, Boudh, Sundargarh, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Cuttack, Khurda, Puri and Balasore.