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Cyclone Fani is India’s scariest, most dangerous storm in years
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.
The fiery #CycloneFani blows through Puripic.twitter.com/tf5VlwHoCu
— PIB India (@PIB_India) May 3, 2019
Furious FANI
Sea Ingression near Chilika Coast in Khordha dist.@PIB_India pic.twitter.com/tK0dkX6Cet
— PIB in Odisha (@PIBBhubaneswar) May 3, 2019
The sound and the fury : here’s what the landfall at Puri by #CycloneFani actually looked like..
Video by @PIBBhubaneswar pic.twitter.com/4GpvKFkRQ3
— PIB India (@PIB_India) May 3, 2019
Earlier satellite loops, when Fani was classified as an “Extremely Severe” tropical cyclone, also demonstrate the storm’s immense power.
UPDATE: Cyclone #Fani is making landfall right now near Puri, India as a Category 4 — one of the strongest landfalling cyclones in the country’s recorded history. pic.twitter.com/TDfalErBJR
— Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) May 3, 2019
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.
Fani weakened into VSCS at 1130 IST near 20.2N/85.9E about 10 km east of Bhubaneswar & 30 km south of Cuttack. To move NNE and weaken into SCS. pic.twitter.com/KJ1UmZotv8
— India Met. Dept. (@Indiametdept) May 3, 2019
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)
