CYCLONE AMPHAN | ABOUT |

CYCLONE AMPHAN: ALL ABOUT IT

Cyclone Amphan, or Super Cyclonic Storm Amphan, is a very powerful tropical cyclone over the Bay of Bengal threatening Odisha and West Bengal in India, as well as Bangladesh. It is the first tropical storm of the year 2020 North Indian Ocean cyclonic season. Amphan is the first super cyclonic storm that arose in the Bay of Bengal after the 1999 Odisha cyclone, which had caused a large destruction. It is mainly caused due to a low pressure created over the Bay of Bengal on 29th  of April, 2020.

IMAGE CREDIT:https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/05/cycloneamphan-759-1.jpg

 Its History:

 

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During May 13th, a region of low pressure was created on the Bay of Bengal only about 1080 km from southeastern Vishakhapatnam, India. The region of low pressure was located within a fine environment for further development with good equatorward outflow, warm sea surface temperatures and low vertical wind shift. During May 16, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reported that the region of low pressure had already developed into a huge depression and designated it as BOB 01, while it had been located about 685 mi to the south of Paradip within Odisha, India.

Moving northwards, Depression continually organised and have become a cyclonic storm a couple of hours later, receiving the name Amphan. The system was unable to strengthen further as moderate wind shear situated to the east was constantly offsetting the eastern side of the system's convection, making it unsymmetrical. During this point , Amphan torrential rainfall to both Sri Lanka and Southern India, and landslide warnings, also as flood warnings, were initiated. On May 17, conditions for significant intensification became more likely because the southern shear previously restricting any kind of intensification began to clear, and therefore the shear situated to the north moved further inland. Subsequently, Amphan became a severe  storm, then began to undergo explosive intensification, consistent with the JTWC, with 1-minute sustained winds increasing from 75 knots  at 11:30 PM (IST) to 115 knots – in just six hours. Furthermore, the IMD upgraded Amphan to a particularly severe tropical storm on the IMD cyclone intensity scale.N ow , Amphan is in an expansive system, with cloud tops extending wider than 690 mi with super-dense, deep and symmetrical central deportation. It also maintained a sharply-outlined 10 nautical mile-wide eye.

CURRENT STATUS:

 

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Amphan will awaken into an ‘Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm’ within the next five hours, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) claimed. It is moving at a normal speed of 14 km per hour towards the coasts of Odisha and West Bengal. At 2.30 am, it lay 720 km south-southwest of Digha in West Bengal 570 km south of Odisha’s Paradip, and 840 km south-southwest of Khepupara in Bangladesh. This super storm is expected to make landfall along Digha in West Bengal by the evening of May 20, i.e. tomorrow 

PREPARATIONS AND IMPACT :

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The formation of this gigantic super cyclone Amphan had forced IMD to announce for a cyclonic alert in the eastern coastline of Bay of Bengal, taking concern of the fisherman and adivising them not to go for fishing till the cyclone diminishes.Ships and Aircrafts of Indian Coast Guard helped the fisherman to return to the coast keeping the order of fisheries department in their mind.Posts were made clear by the Govt. Crews and backup systems for electricity and telecommunications were deployed to meet all the needs, order from Govt. The Shramik trains for migrant workers was made to stop in Odisha for up to 4 days nearly.

The Chief Secretary of Odisha, Asit Kumar Tripathy had  annouced 403 possible shelters in areas potentially impacted by Amphan very badly, though 105 served as temporary medical centres for quarantines associated with the concurrent COVID-19 pandemic disease.

A total of 1 million people living in the Bangladesh-India border were asked to evacuate the place. The evacuation began on 17th May, 2020 in Jagatsinghpur. Two million people were asked to evacutae their places staying in low land areas in Bangladesh on May 19th, 2020.