Cyclone Murasu forms over the Bay of Bengal, with landfall on Andhra coast expected on 3 November

Cyclonic Storm Murasu formed over the Bay of Bengal on Sunday, 1 November, and is expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh coast on 3 November, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) as reported by Hindustan Times, The New Indian Express and Mint. This piece is as of the evening of 1 November. Murasu is the name India proposed under the regional cyclone-naming system; Hindustan Times says it is a Tamil word for a drum.

What IMD says

Hindustan Times reports that at 5:30 am IST on 1 November a depression had intensified into a deep depression about 700 km east-southeast of Chennai. Hindustan Times says IMD later said it had become Cyclonic Storm Murasu. The New Indian Express says the 5:30 pm bulletin placed the system about 420 km east-southeast of Chennai and 560 km south-southeast of Visakhapatnam, and said it was very likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm by the early hours of 2 November. It then expects the storm to move northwest and cross the south Andhra Pradesh coast between Nellore and Narsapur from around 11:30 pm on 2 November to 4 am on 3 November. Mint quotes IMD saying it is set to cross the coast between Nellore and Narsapur by the morning of 3 November.

Where the reports differ

Hindustan Times, in its later article, gives expected landfall winds of 80-90 kmph gusting to 100 kmph, while its earlier article quotes IMD for a severe cyclonic storm with 100-110 kmph gusting to 120 kmph. The New Indian Express and Mint give 100-110 kmph gusting to 120 kmph. Hindustan Times quotes IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra as saying the forecast was for a cyclonic storm, with a slight possibility of a severe cyclonic storm. The Mint report quotes the IMD bulletin as saying it would intensify into a "very severe cyclonic storm", while its own text says "severe cyclonic storm". The reports all place landfall in a window from late 2 November to the morning of 3 November.

Andhra Pradesh

The New Indian Express reports that Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu directed officials to be fully prepared for relief and rescue, and that officials told him the storm was likely to cross near Bapatla on the morning of 3 November. It says 20 mandals are forecast to receive extremely heavy rainfall, nine of them in Eluru district, and that preliminary estimates indicate strong winds could damage about 15,128 electricity poles across 12 districts. The storm comes days after Cyclone Arnab; Mint says Arnab made landfall near Andhra Pradesh and Odisha on 28 October, and Hindustan Times says it caused havoc across Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and other parts of southern India.

Odisha and Telangana

Mint says an orange alert for heavy rainfall at isolated places has been issued for six Telangana districts (Khammam, Nalgonda, Suryapet, Mahabubnagar, Nagarkurnool and Wanaparthy) and a yellow alert for five others, including Hyderabad. It also says Odisha has been put on high alert and quotes the director of the Bhubaneswar Meteorological Centre, Manorama Mohanty, saying rainfall will begin on 2 November and intensify on 3 and 4 November.

Odisha Bytes reports that Odisha Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suresh Pujari chaired a review meeting on Saturday and quotes him saying evacuation will start for people the district administration identifies as living in vulnerable conditions, while The New Indian Express says Pujari said the government had ordered evacuation from low-lying areas and hilly terrain. Odisha Bytes says Cyclone Arnab had caused significant damage in Gajapati and Kandhamala districts through landslides, and that the Ganjam district administration directed officials to move people in vulnerable areas to shelters by Sunday night.