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Fani is India’s strongest April cyclone in 43 years, say meteorologists
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- Cyclonic storm Fani, which is lying about 600 km east of Vishakapatnam is the first severe, cyclonic storm to have formed in April in India’s oceanic neighbourhood.
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- Climate change is the reason:(1) Severe cyclones defined as generating maximum windspeeds of 89-117 kmph, can form any time.(2) They tend to be concentrated in November after the monsoon or around May, when the monsoon prepares to arrive in Kerala in June.(3) Head of IMD said that this is a cyclone that is forming due to the warming of the Bay of Bengal basin.
- Data from the IMD’s cyclone-statistics:(1) From 1965-2017, the Bay of Bengal and Arabian sea have collectively registered 46 severe cyclonic storms.(2) As many as 28 of them were from October-December.(3) Seven of them have been in May and only two were recorded in April.(4) Tropical cyclones in the Indian neighbourhood begin as ‘depressions’ or a gradual build-up of warm air and pockets of low pressure.(5) About 35% of such formations intensify to ‘cyclones’ and only 7% intensify to very severe cyclone.(6) About 20-30 severe tropical storms occur around the world every year.
- Predictions about Fani:(1) Cyclone Fani is expected to graduate to an ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’ and make landfall in Orissa by May 4.(2) Fani’s slow progress it is now moving at 11-18 kmph was also a matter of worry as the longer it hovered in the ocean, the more moisture and energy it gained from the ocean and the stronger its impact along the coast.
Source
The hindu