The Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services (MET) says Malawians are still in danger after Cyclone Jude made a landfall in Mozambique yesterday but with minimal impact on Malawi as of early evening.
In an interview last evening, MET director Lucy Mtilatila said some parts of the country have started feeling Jude’s impact despite that its centre was still in Mozambique at a distance of about 300 kilometres from Malawi.
While explaining that the cyclone has slowed down and weakened a bit, Mtilatila advised Malawians to be on alert, saying chances are high that its remnants will affect some parts of the country.
She said: “The referral of the cyclone has already reached Malawi. The centre is usually calm, so the distractive weather is always outside the centre of the cyclone.
“We are still in danger zone. We are not yet out of the danger zone. So, I would like to encourage Malawians to continue being vigilant and alert.”
In a weather update issued yesterday evening, MET states that Jude was moving westwards towards southern Malawi at a reduced speed of 15kilometres per hour. The update further indicates that the cyclone’s centre in Mozambique was at a distance of about 322 km from Phalombe.
“Currently, projections have maintained that southern Malawi will be impacted the most by Cyclone Jude,” reads the statement in part.
According to the department, 16 districts in the country were expected to be affected by Jude from yesterday. The districts are Balaka, Blantyre, Chikwawa, Chiradzulu, Dedza, Machinga, Mangochi, Mulanje, Mwanza, Neno, Nsanje, Ntcheu, Phalombe, Salima, Thyolo and Zomba.
Spot-checks in some of the districts likely to be affected by Cyclone Jude found that most of them, including Phalombe, Blantyre and Zomba had started experiencing some rains.
Following a warning by MET that the storm was expected to develop into a cyclone and directly trigger heavy rains and strong winds in Malawi’s 16 districts from yesterday, ministries of Basic and Secondary Education as well as Higher Education temporarily suspended classes in the said districts.
