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Cyclone Gombe is expected to hit northern Mozambique late Thursday or Friday, according to the latest weather forecasts. This will be the most severe storm to hit the country this season.
Senior Meteorologist at AccuWeather Jason Nichols reports today that Gombe is now a severe tropical storm and can strengthen to tropical or intense tropical cyclone before striking northern Mozambique late Thursday or Friday.
#Gombe is now a severe tropical storm over N Mozambique Channel and can strengthen to tropical cyclone or intense tropical cyclone before striking N #Mozambique late Thursday or Friday. pic.twitter.com/voaYbGIziH
— Jason Nicholls (@jnmet) March 9, 2022
INAM latest forecast
The cyclone is expected to come ashore between Nacala and Angoche, on the coast of Nampula province, late Friday morning and cause very heavy rain that could exceed 100 millimetres (39 inches) in 24 hours, the Mozambican National Meteorology Institute (INAM) said.
INAM forecasts that winds will gust between 120 and 150 kilometres per hour.
According to the French weather service in Mauritius, which monitors cyclone activity in the southwest Indian Ocean, Gombe will enter Mozambique in the state of an intense tropical cyclone, the first to have this severity when it reaches Mozambique this season.
After landing on Friday, it will lose strength but drag heavy rain inland on Saturday as far as Nampula, the provincial capital.
On Sunday, it will change direction and head back towards the coast, re-entering the Mozambique Channel on Monday, where it will regain strength, warmed by the sea surface (warmer than the continental surface) and head south over the ocean.
According to the latest balance sheet of the National Institute for Disaster Management (INGD), 72 people have died in the current rainy and cyclonic season, which runs from 1 October until the end of April.
Most deaths were caused by landslides and floods, others by lightning and fires.
Awareness-raising campaigns continue until the end of the season to keep people away from flood zones and tell them to store food and other essential items in safe areas.
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