Mozambique’s National Institute of Meteorology (Inam) has issued a weather warning for the country after a tropical depression moved over Madagascar and started spinning across the Mozambican Channel yesterday.
Yesterday Cheneso was approaching the country’s coast at 11 kilometres an hour (km/h), packing wind speeds of up to 65 (km/h).
It has already affected coastal areas in the provinces of Nampula and Zambezia, north of the province of Sofala, where the Port of Beira is located.
Satellite imagery also shows that Cheneso is heading down the coast to the Port of Beira.
Inam has forecast that as it spirals south, wind speeds of up to 45 km/h can be expected, with gusts reaching 65km/h.
Communities living along the coast have been warned that Cheneso could bring rain of as much as 300 millimetres per hour.
The warning includes the threat of severe electrical thunderstorms.
Although Inam, which falls under Mozambique’s Ministry of Transport and Communication, hasn’t said anything about the supposed risk of Cheneso, freight interests are cautioned to monitor the situation around the country’s ports and logistical linkages into hinterland areas.
At the time this report was posted, the South African Weather Service had not released any information about Cheneso, despite satellite images showing that the tropical storm could be heading to areas further south, such as Swaziland and the northern KwaZulu-Natal coast.
