Cyclone Fani is India’s scariest, most dangerous storm in years

puri india nomad tales cyclone fani flickr

Mozambique has had its fair share of tropical cyclones this year. Now India’s dealing with its first of 2019, and likely fiercest storm in two decades.

Dubbed Cyclone Fani, the storm made landfall near the town of Puri along India’s eastern coastline on Friday morning SAST bringing with it sustained wind speeds of 215km/h. That’s Category 4 strength on the Saffir-Simpson scale, used by the US to rate hurricanes.

The storm’s track takes it along the eastern coastline of India, passing through the state of Odisha, over West Bengal’s capital Kolkata, and through into Bangladesh.

It has forced the evacuation of more than a million people. Two people have died, Aljazeera reports.

Visuals from the Indian coastline too demonstrates how ferocious this storm really is.

Earlier satellite loops, when Fani was classified as an “Extremely Severe” tropical cyclone, also demonstrate the storm’s immense power.

The storm is predicted to move north-northeast and continue to weaken within the next six hours, but not by much. India’s meteorological department notes the storm will likely still be a “severe cyclonic storm” which packs wind speeds between 89-117km/h.

Feature image: The town of Puri, India was in the path of Fani when it made landfall earlier on Friday morning, by Nomad Tales via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0, resized)

Andy Walker, former editor
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