Bhubaneswar: With the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicting unseasonal rain and dense fog in 11 districts of Odisha, the state government issued an advisory Friday asking all District Collectors to stay prepared to tackle the eventuality.
Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Jena in a letter to all the Collectors said that the IMD has predicted thunderstorm and dense fog in Odisha till February 10.
The Bhubaneswar Meteorological Centre has predicted rain, thunderstorm and dense fog at isolated places in several districts of Odisha from February 6 to 10.
“The situation may be closely monitored and appropriate steps taken to face any eventuality,” the SRC’s letter said.
“During dense fog, movement of vehicles on highways may be regulated with the help of police and transport officials to prevent road accident,” the letter said.
Disaster incident/damage, if any, may be reported to the state emergency operation centre immediately for information of the government, the SRC said in the letter.
The IMD in its forecast said that apart from rain, strong winds with speed reaching 30-40 kmph will blow in all the 11 districts.
Light to moderate rainfall along with lightning and thunderstorm will occur in several districts in the next 24 hours, the duty officer of Bhubaneswar MeT office, Charan Behera, said Friday.
He said the districts such as Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Jajpur, Bhadrak, Cuttack, Kendrapara, Jagatsinghpur, Khurda, Puri and Nayagarh will witness such weather conditions.
“Heavy rain is also likely to lash several places of Sambalpur, Jagatsinghpur, Ganjam and Puri,” he said, adding that yellow warning has been issued for six districts – Angul, Dhenkanal, Sambalpur, Deogarh and Keonjhar.
The IMD further said that after the rains subside, cold wave conditions in the state will intensify as the temperature will drop by a few degrees, especially in the interior regions, it said.
The night temperature may gradually fall by 3-5 degrees Celsius across the state after February 10, it said.
Meanwhile, many parts of the state experienced rainfall due to a cyclonic circulation Friday.
While Soroda in Ganjam district received 6 cm rainfall, Aska got 5 cm.