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Odisha, AP brace for severe cyclone New Delhi, October 11 It is the biggest cyclone in years to hit Odisha and expected to make a landfall near Gopalpur in Ganjam district after crossing an area between Paradip in Odisha and Kalingapatnam in Andhra. Rathore identified Ganjam, Khurda, Puri and Jagatsinghpur districts in Odisha and Srikakalum in Andhra Pradesh as the areas expected to be worst hit. Phailin is currently in the process of crossing the Bay of Bengal, moving west-north-westwards with a speed of 15 km per hour. It is 400 by 500 metres in diameter and its wind intensity may increase up to 230 kmph at the time of landfall on the eastern seaboard. Reports suggest London-based storm tracking Service Tropical Storm Risk has placed Phailin in the most intense Category 5 of powerful storms.Though Rathore says it is not super cyclone, there are apprehensions that Phailin may duplicate the devastation caused by the “super cyclone” that devastated India’s east coast in 1999. Some international experts have classified Phailin’s current intensity on par with Hurricane Katrina that hit the US in 2005. Phailin may be the strongest cyclone ever measured in the Indian Ocean though the IMD remains conservative in approach and expects it to weaken upon reaching the coast. The district authorities have started evacuation of people living in low-lying areas close to the sea. There are reports of panic buying of essential commodities. Already, the sea along and off the coast is very rough and expected to become “phenomenal” on Saturday. The storm surge of three meters will inundate the low-lying areas while heavy rainfall will cause flood-like situation in many places. It will cause “extensive damage” to the horticulture and agriculture crops. Crops are at a maturity stage and the IMD has been issuing regular warnings to farmers, advising them to take precautionary measures. Areas in danger zone Odisha: Ganjam, Khurda, Puri, Jagatsinghpur districts Cyclone likely to make landfall at Gopalpur in Odisha Has Hurricane Katrina’s ferocity
Major evacuation under way
The Odisha Government on Friday night mounted a massive operation to evacuate 2 lakh people from six coastal districts. In Andhra Pradesh, over 64,000 people have been evacuated from three districts
Naming of cyclones
Phailin has been given its name by Thailand. It means sapphire in Thai. The Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre in the IMD has the responsibility of christening all cyclones that hit India, Pakistan, Oman, Bangladesh, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand. The identification system is as per names suggested by these countries and covers the Indian Ocean - both the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
As per met officials, assigning a name, rather than a number or the date makes it easier to track and remember a particular cyclon. Interesting history
Hurricanes in the beginning of the century used to be deadly, therefore usually named after politicians. When objections were raised, Army and Navy meteorologists started naming cyclones after their girlfriends and wives during the World War-II which also led to criticism. In 1979, the US Natural Weather Service and the World Meteorological Organisation developed a systematic way of naming cyclones in the beginning of the year, alternating male and female names, arranged in an
alphabetical order.
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Classified as “very severe”, cyclone Phailin will hit the Andhra Pradesh and Odisha coast around 6 pm on Saturday with a wind speed of 200 to 220 km per hour gusting up to 230 kmph. The cyclone, which according to IMD chief LS Rathore has a “quite high damage potential”, will hit the coast with a storm surge of three metres and move northwest causing heavy rains in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, West Bengal and east Uttar Pradesh. 