Met Department calls for calm

The Meteorological Services Department has advised the public to be calm but keep informed as the anticipated cyclone is still a tropical depression and far off.

This comes as a tropical cyclone which according to the MSD is yet to be named is expected to hit some parts of Chimanimani next week.

If the cyclone hits Chimanimani, this will be the second time the area would have been affected by a cyclone in 21 months, after Cyclone Idai left a trail of death, destruction and displacement of people in March last year.

Government has already mobilised Civil Protection teams which are on high alert especially in the eastern parts of the country.

In an advisory early this morning, the MSD said the tropical was currently in the far Indian Ocean.

“A, yet to be named, Tropical Depression is situated in a quasi-stationary position near the centre of the Indian Ocean, to the north east of Mauritius, to the far east of Madagascar.

“On Thursday December 24, 0200hrs it was near 14degress south and 60 degrees east and expected to track southwestward towards Madagascar in the coming days as it steadily intensifies (might later become a tropical storm then a Cyclone,” said the MSD.

All the cyclones and Tropical storms that affect Zimbabwe emanate from the Mozambique Channel but depending on their trajectory or path, some of them tend to dry out while others bring significant rainfall over the country.

Noting that these tropical storms also tend to weaken when they fall on land; the current system is anticipated to make initial land over Madagascar on Sunday December 27, and rejuvenate in the Mozambique Channel around

Tuesday, December 2020. However due to the nature of such systems this path and speed can change drastically.

“The Meteorological Services Department will continue to monitor intensity as well as the trajectory and update the public accordingly,” said the MSD. The Herald