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The rain bands of Cyclone Ditwah started causing rainfall in southern Tamil Nadu on the morning of November 28, 2025, while still precipitating extremely heavy rainfall, flash floods and landslides in many regions of Sri Lanka. Fifty-six people have lost their lives in the country due to the extreme weather and associated events, as reported by The New York Times.
The India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) latest tropical weather outlook on the morning of November 28 stated that the cyclone lay 40 km southwest of Trincomalee in Sri Lanka and 320 km south-southeast of Karaikal in Tamil Nadu.
The weather agency predicted the storm to move north-northwestwards across the Sri Lanka coast and adjoining southwest Bay of Bengal and reach the north Tamil Nadu, Puducherry and south Andhra Pradesh coasts by the morning of November 30.
“Latest satellite data show Cyclone Ditwah’s centre lying over the land in the northeastern part of Sri Lanka. The strong convective cloud bands are seen over the north and northwest part of the system,” wrote Ajith Kumar, who runs the ‘Chennai Weatherman’ account on X.
“Now, the cloud bands have started falling over the Ramanathapuram coastal stretch. After a few more spins tracking to north-northwest, rains will increase through the day, over Ramanathapuram, Nagapattinam, Karaikal & delta districts,” he added.
According to Kumar, apart from these districts, regions in the interiors may also receive heavy-to -very heavy rains by the night of November 28 and on November 29. Chennai city may start getting rains by November 28 night or November 29. The heaviest rainfall in the city could be on November 29 and November 30, according to Kumar.
Rainfall forecasts based on data from the Global Forecasting System (GFS) of the United States (US) as visualised on the weather platform Windy show that rainfall rate as high as 10 mm/hr could occur in the coastal areas of Tamil Nadu’s Ramanathapuram district in the early morning hours of November 29.
On the other hand, the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) showed such high rainfall rates in the coastal areas of Nagapattinam district around the same time.
The IMD, in a press statement on November 27, forecast heavy-to-very heavy rainfall for Tamil Nadu from November 27-30. The extremely heavy rainfall from the cyclone may occur on November 29 and 30, according to IMD. The weather agency also put out alerts for heavy rains over Rayalaseema, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Yanam, Kerala, Mahe, Telangana and south interior Karnataka from the remnants of the storm in the coming days.
There is also a possibility for Cyclone Ditwah to rapidly intensify because of favourable conditions along the Tamil Nadu coast. The rapid intensification could make the landfall area of the system and the volume of rainfall it could carry more uncertain.