Harare (New Ziana) -The Meteorological Services Department (MSD) has urged members of the public not to panic over the much-anticipated Cyclone Freddy anymore, as there are no extreme conditions still to expect from the storm system.
In an interview with New Ziana, MSD senior meteorologist James Ngoma said as they had earlier on projected, the South-eastern parts of the country, namely districts including Chimanimani, Chipinge, Chiredzi, Mwenezi, Beitbridge, Bikita, Chivi, Masvingo rural and Zaka would be the worst affected by heavy rainfall and windy conditions.
He highlighted that in their earlier statement, no mention had been made of Harare, Mashonaland East, or any other areas falling victim to the natural phenomenon.
“The country is still on warning Level 1, and people have no need to panic yet until it reaches warning level 4, 5 and 6 going upwards,” he said.
Level 1 warning, which is signified by a yellow triangle showing that the system wouldn’t have much of disastrous effect.
“Based on that, we had windy conditions over the Southern parts of the country much of the weekend. Notably, we noticed a few houses having their roofs blown off,” said Ngoma Jr, adding they had received four such cases which, however, were yet to be confirmed trough the Civil Protection Unit (CPU).
In terms of rainfall received, Ngoma said they had recorded the highest of 38 mm, with a cumulative total of 51 mm over some areas projected to the epicentres of Cyclone Freddy.
Ngoma Jr said the MSD was still projecting that the storm system would persist over the Southern area until the point of its forecast, which was up to Tuesday.
He said the country was still expecting a bit of windy conditions and rainfall in some places over the South-eastern parts of the country.
“Our watch still stands, we are still going for those light rains and windy conditions over the south-eastern parts of the country, but this should not cause people alarm as our warn level is still warn level 1 and not yet in the warn level 5, 4, 6 or 10 for that matter, and people should not panic even up to the end of Tuesday.
New Ziana
