HARARE – The Meteorological Services Department (MSD) on Monday said Cyclone Freddy had weakened although warning of the effects of heavy rainfall that is still expected in parts of the country.
MSD senior meteorologist James Ngoma said there are no more extreme conditions expected from the dreaded storm.
Ngoma however said, as earlier forecasted, the southeastern parts of the country such as Chimanimani, Chipinge, Chiredzi, Mwenezi, Beitbridge, Bikita, Chivi, Masvingo rural and Zaka would still be affected by heavy rainfall and windy conditions.
“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.
He said level 1 warning is represented by a yellow triangle showing that the cyclone would not 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, adding four such cases had been reported although not yet confirmed by the Civil Protection department.
He said the department had recorded the highest rainfall of 38 mm, with a cumulative total of 51 mm over some areas.
He said the weather department was still projecting that the storm would persist over the Southern area until Tuesday.
“Our watch still stands, we are still going for those light rains and windy conditions over the southeastern 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,” said Ngoma.
