‘Fani’ Had Longest Life Span Among Tropical Cyclones In The Bay

Bhubaneswar: The extremely severe cyclonic storm ‘Fani’, which pulverised parts of coastal Odisha on May 3, had the longest life span among tropical cyclones observed in the Bay of Bengal.

“The storm continued for altogether 11 days, considering its time in the sea and on land, giving it the longest life span ever observed in the Bay of Bengal,” said meteorologist and director of the Centre for Environment and Climate (CEC) here on Tuesday.

He said the peculiarity of this strong cyclonic storm was the persistence of its intensity till it crossed the coast, not weakening even on landfall after crossing the coast close to Brahmagiri in Puri district and high temperatures in the region, though it moved parallel along the east coast from Tamil Nadu to Odisha. Besides, it did not cause extremely heavy rainfall in Odisha as was anticipated.

The storm surge height, as reported by Satapada residents, was about 10ft, while the wind speed was over 200 km per hour.

The cyclonic storm, which started as a low pressure near the Equator on April 24, took about two hours to cross the coast after landfall and then headed northwards towards Bhubaneswar and nearby areas. The Odisha capital was within the eye of the cyclone, the diameter of which was about 28km, and it moved at 22kmph.

Sahu said there was a lull in the cyclone for about 30 minutes after which the wind direction, as well as the speed, changed. The wind speed increased as the eye crossed over to land, because of a combination of wind velocity and downdrafts caused by the thunderstorm over Bhubaneswar at that time.

The cyclone maintained its intensity till it reached Bhubaneswar and then changed direction to move in a northeastward direction towards Mayurbhanj.

“The devastation wrought by ‘Fani’ over land was mainly because of high wind speed and fast movement. But it would have caused greater devastation had it remained stationary or moved at low speed on land for some time,” said the former director of the Meteorological Centre, Bhubaneswar.

After weakening of the system, the temperature in Odisha’s interior districts rose suddenly and the same was likely to rise further from May 17, touching 45 degrees C in most locations of western and interior districts. The situation was likely to continue for about a week, he said.

Tropical cyclones are known by various names in different parts of the world, such as Hurricane in North Atlantic Ocean and eastern North Pacific Ocean; Typhoons in western North Pacific Ocean around the Philippines, Japan and China; and Tropical Cyclones in western South Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.