Cyclone Kyarr expected to weaken by 28 October evening; orange, yellow warnings issued in Kerala districts

Cyclone Kyarr transformed into a severe cyclonic storm on Monday, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said following which fishermen have been warned to not venture in parts of the sea near the system’s centre.The IMD also predicted heavy rainfall in Kerala and Mahe and thunderstorm and lightning in Odisha and that sea conditions are likely to be phenomenal over the central Arabian Sea, where the storm is centered.Several weather warnings have also been issued in Kerala, NewsMinute reported. Orange warning has been issued in Kollam district for Tuesday and in Idukki for Wednesday, where isolated heavy to very heavy rainfall is expected. Yellow colour code warning has been issued for Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Pathanamthitta and Idukki on Monday and Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta, Alappuzha, Kottayam, Ernakulam and Idukki on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the yellow colour code warnings have been declared similar to Tuesday, with the additional warnings given to Thrissur and Palakkad.According to the Joint Typhoon Center, Cyclone Kyarr has now become only the second Category 5 in the Arabian Sea, with maximum sustained winds are 150 miles per hour and minimum central pressure has decreased to 928 mb.High swell waves in the range of 2.5-2.9 meters are forecasted till Tuesday midnight beyond 10 kilometres off the coast of Kerala. IMD has advised fishermen to not venture into the east central Arabian Sea till Tuesday and into west central Arabian Sea from Monday to Friday. The Indian Coast Guard has deployed its ships Samudra Prahari, Amal, Apoorva, Amartya and Rajdoot on the Karnataka-Goa coast, PTI reported. Dornier aircraft were also put into action to coordinate with the ships while rescuing fishermen.The aircraft are reportedly making several sorties to look for stranded boats. Super Cyclone Kyarr will weaken into an Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm by 28 October evening and subside into a cyclonic storm by 2 November, according to IMD’s deputy director-general KS Hosalikar. As on Monday morning, it lay centred over the East Central Arabian Sea, about 700 kilometres southwest of Mumbai. The weather body predicted that the storm will move west-northwestwards towards the Oman coast during next five days.Kyarr is the first super cyclone after Cyclone Gonu in 2007, considered the strongest-ever to have been witnessed over the Arabian Sea. Gonu had made landfall in Oman with winds gusting upto 150km/hour.‘Phenomenal’ is among the categories under the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) sea state code which largely adopts the 'wind sea' definition of the Douglas Sea Scale and classifies according to wave height. When the waves are above a height of 14 metres, the sea condition can be called phenomenal, the highest on the scale.