The Nadi weather office has issued a gale warning for the Fiji group particularly the west.

Meteorology director Alipate Waqaicelua says the current Tropical Depression is now located south east of Port Villa in Vanuatu and is moving towards the South west of Fiji.

Waqaicelua says the Tropical depression continues to grow and is expected to develop into a cyclone in the next 6 hours which will bring heavy bands of rain.

“The associated rain bands, the cloud, rain and strong winds will affect Fiji later on today. It’s now coming on to the western parts of Fiji and particularly Viti Levu, Yasawas, Mamanucas, Kadavu, Southern Lau and the smaller islands later today. We expect winds to pick up and as I speak wind has picked up in Nadi. They will possibly become damaging gale or gale force winds sometime later today. These bands of rain or gale force winds could be destructive to certain structures.”

Waqaicelua is also advising people to take heed of these warnings.

“We are advising people to be careful and to act as early as they can. There will be heavy rain later today into the night and to exercise extreme caution, move while you still can and don’t wait for the weather to worsen.”