Cyclone Biparjoy to have no impact on UAE but India and Pakistan on high alert

The National Centre of Meteorology said the weather front is continuing to move away from the Emirates

Forecasters expect Cyclone Biparjoy to make landfall between India's Kutch region and Karachi, Pakistan, on Thursday. AP

The UAE's weather centre said on Monday that a cyclone that formed in the Arabian Sea will have no impact on the country, as it grows in strength ahead of its expected arrival in India and Pakistan later this week.

The National Centre of Meteorology had assured the public last week that Cyclone Biparjoy was unlikely to affect the Emirates but that it was continuing to monitor the situation.

Authorities on India's western coast are evacuating low-lying areas ahead of the arrival of Cyclone Biparjoy, which is scheduled to make landfall in Gujarat state on Thursday.

“The hurricane is currently centred in the middle of the eastern Arabian Sea at latitude 19.6 north and longitude 67.7, and the wind speed around the centre ranges from 160 to 170kph,” the NCM said in a statement via state news agency Wam.

It said the cyclone had been upgraded from a Category 1 to a Category 2, on a scale in which Category 5 is the most severe.

“It will begin to gradually weaken to the first degree during the night and tomorrow morning, heading north towards the Indo-Pakistani coasts,” it continued.

The Indian Meteorological Department said that Biparjoy had intensified into an “extremely severe cyclonic storm” on Sunday morning and was moving north-east at a speed of 8kph.

Cyclone Biparjoy, whose name means “destruction”, has been brewing for the past week in the Arabian Sea. It was declared a severe cyclone by Oman on June 7.

Sardar Sarfaraz, the representative for Pakistan's Meteorological Department, said the cyclone's maximum sustained surface winds were between 160kph and 180kph, with gusts reaching 200kph around the centre of the system.

He warned that waves hitting the coast could reach four metres when the cyclone makes landfall between India's Kutch region and Karachi, Pakistan.