System expected to be fiercest to threaten country since a storm that killed 10,000 in 1999
A woman carries her baby as she moves to a safer place with others at the village Donkuru in Srikakulam district in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh Oct. 12, 2013. Rain and wind lashed India's east coast on Saturday, forcing more than 400,000 people to flee to storm shelters as one of the country's largest cyclones closed in, threatening to cut a wide swathe of devastation through farmland and fishing hamlets
Strong winds and heavy rains pounded India's eastern coastline Saturday, as authorities rushed to move tens of thousands of people away from massive Cyclone Phailin, which is expected to be the fiercest cyclone to threaten the country since a storm killed 10,000 people 14 years ago.
The skies were dark – almost black – at midmorning in Bhubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa state and about 60 miles from the coast. Roaring winds made palm trees sway wildly, and to the south, seawater was pushing inland.
Satellite images showed the system covering an area roughly half the size of India. Some forecasters have likened its size and intensity to that of Katrina, which blasted the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.
If the storm continues on its current path without weakening, it is expected to cause large-scale power and communications outages and shut down road and rail links, officials said. There could also be extensive damage to crops.
While there is some disagreement about how strong the storm's winds will be, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) warned that Phailin, which is expected to hit the coast by Saturday evening, is a "very severe cyclonic storm" that will bring with it maximum sustained winds of 130 to 135 mph. The IMD also predicted flooding and storm surges of about 10 feet above normal tides.
Some foreign forecasters have suggested that India's weather office is underestimating the power of Phailin, which means "sapphire" in Thai.
The storm has strengthened at one of the highest rates ever recorded, going from a tropical storm to a category 4 cyclone in only 24 hours. On Friday (Oct. 11), became the equivalent of the catagory upto 5 hurricans - the strongest on the American scale—with sustained winds of 160 mph (260 kph). That official wind speed has tied Phailin with the devastating 1999 Orissa Cyclone which killed more than 10,000 people—currently India’s strongest storm ever. Cyclones in India are the same as hurricanes in the United States — different words for the same thing.
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At least one atmospheric scientist believes a catastrophic storm surge—the rise of ocean levels pushed by a storm’s winds and pressure—may be a certainity. Storm surge is by far Phailin’s biggest threat to lives along India’s coastline. Ocean levels may rise as much as 6 meters (20 feet) near and to the northeast of the storm’s landfall location, pushing an inexorable wall of water inland. Storm surge of nearly 3 meters may stretch as far northeast as the vulnerable Ganges Delta of Bangladesh—home to tens of millions. The JTWC estimates that waves of up to 17 meters (56 feet) are already buffeting the Bay of Bengal.
The storm may also bring nearly one meter of extra rainfall to inland areas that have already borne the brunt of an overly active monsoon season.+
And the storm may not be finished strengthening yet.
Phailin is now forecast to break the Indian Ocean intensity record set by the 1999 Cyclone just prior to its Saturday landfall, according to the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii:
Even if Phailin doesn’t manage to hold the intensity record, the storm surge will be immense. An American specialist, Hal Needham, wrote that recent research shows that the strength of a storm 18 hours before landfall is the best predictor of its peak storm surge. In India and Bangladesh, where so many live only a few meters above sea level, the sheer size of Phailin nearly guarantees that hundreds of thousands of homes will be inundated. A storm surge of 1 to 3 meters could extend for hundreds of kilometers northeast of where the storm makes landfall. In short, Phailin is a humanitarian disaster in the making.
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Despite international consensus that Phailin was among the most powerful storms ever to threaten the subcontinent, India’s Meteorology Department (IMD) continued to gauge the storm’s strength conservatively. In the latest forecast, the IMD predicted sustained winds of 210-220 kph and storm surge of up to 3.5 meters (11 feet) at landfall. These numbers are about 40 kph weaker than the JTWC’s most recent forecast, and in my opinion, the storm surge could be double what IMD is predicting.
One possible explanation for this discrepancy is a different philiosphy of interpreting satellite data.
Other weather centers predicted stronger winds. The U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecast gusts of up to 196 mph. The London-based storm tracking service Tropical Storm Risk said Phailin was a Category 5 "super cyclone," evoking memories of the 1999 storm in Odisha, when winds reached speeds of 186 mph and battered the state for 30 hours.
Winds reached 140 mph during Hurricane Katrina in Aug. 2005.
This time Odisha's state government said it was better prepared. It broadcast cyclone warnings through loudspeakers and on radio and television as the first winds were felt on the coast and in Bhubaneswar.
Large waves were already pounding beaches in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. Villagers were evacuated to schools in the north of the state, while panic buying drove up food prices.
By Friday evening, some 420,000 people had been moved to higher ground or shelters in Orissa, and 100,000 more in neighboring Andhra Pradesh, Indian Home Secretary Anil Goswami told The Associated Press.
Not everybody was willing to leave homes and belongings, and some villagers on the Andhra Pradesh coast said they had not been told to evacuate.
"Of course I'm scared, but where will I move with my family?" asked Kuramayya, a fisherman from the village of Bandharuvanipeta, close to where the storm is expected to make landfall. "We can't leave our boats behind."
Officials cancelled celebrations for the Hindu holiday of Durga Puja – a celebration of the Hindu goddess Durga – and stockpiled emergency supplies in coastal Odisha and Andhra Pradesh states.
Cyclone Phailin is set to become the strongest India has ever seen
With landfall in less than 24 hours (Saturday Oct. 12 in the afternoon, India time), final preparations are underway in India for Cyclone Phailin—now officially the strongest storm ever measured in the Indian Ocean. The image above shows the storm’s core as it approaches the coastline. (See our earlier coverage on why Phailin’s landfall in this particularly volatile part of India is especially unwelcome.)
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At least one atmospheric scientist believes a catastrophic storm surge—the rise of ocean levels pushed by a storm’s winds and pressure—a certainity. Storm surge is by far Phailin’s biggest threat to lives along India’s coastline. Ocean levels may rise as much as 6 meters (20 feet) near and to the northeast of the storm’s landfall location, pushing an inexorable wall of water inland. Storm surge of nearly 3 meters may stretch as far northeast as the vulnerable Ganges Delta of Bangladesh—home to tens of millions. The JTWC estimates that waves of up to 17 meters (56 feet) are already buffeting the Bay of Bengal.
The storm may also bring extra rainfall to inland areas that have already borne the brunt of an overly active monsoon season.
And the storm may not be finished strengthening yet.
Phailin is now forecast to break the Indian Ocean intensity record set by the 1999 Cyclone just prior to its Saturday landfall, according to the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.+
Despite international consensus that Phailin was among the most powerful storms ever to threaten the subcontinent, India’s Meteorology Department (IMD) continued to gauge the storm’s strength conservatively. In its forecast, the IMD predicted sustained winds of 210-220 kph and storm surge of up to 3.5 meters (11 feet) at landfall. These numbers are about 40 kph weaker than the JTWC’s most recent forecast, and in my opinion, the storm surge could be double what IMD is predicting.
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This is the view from India’s Kalpana weather satellite:
The storm has strengthened at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, going from a tropical storm to a category 4 cyclone in only 24 hours. On Friday (Oct. 11), it became equivalent of a catagory of 5 hurricans - the strongest on the American scale—with sustained winds of 160 mph (260 kph). That official wind speed has tied Phailin with the devastating 1999 Orissa Cyclone which killed more than 10,000 people—currently India’s strongest storm ever. Cyclones in India are the same as hurricanes in the United States — different words for the same thing.
At least one atmospheric scientist believes a catastrophic storm surge—the rise of ocean levels pushed by a storm’s winds and pressure—may now be a certainity. Storm surge is by far Phailin’s biggest threat to lives along India’s coastline. Ocean levels may rise as much as 6 meters (20 feet) near and to the northeast of the storm’s landfall location, pushing an inexorable wall of water inland. Storm surge of nearly 3 meters may stretch as far northeast as the vulnerable Ganges Delta of Bangladesh—home to tens of millions. The JTWC estimates that waves of up to 17 meters (56 feet) are already buffeting the Bay of Bengal.
The storm may also bring nearly one meter of addition rainfall to inland areas that have already borne the brunt of an overly active monsoon season.
And the storm may not be finished strengthening yet. Read more.
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