Cyclone Amphan is 125 km south-southeast of Digha in West Bengal, according to the latest update from IMD at 11.30 a.m. It is expected to cross West Bengal-Bangladesh coasts between Digha in West Bengal and Hatiya Islands in Bangladesh, close to Sunderbans.
Coastal areas
in West Bengal comprising East Midnapur, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Kolkata, Hooghly and Howrah as well as Odisha were affected by the
cyclone.
Cyclone Amphan.
| Super cyclonic storm (IMD scale) |
|---|
| Amphan near peak intensity over the Bay of Bengal on May 18 |
| Formed | 16 May 2020 |
| Dissipated | 21 May 2020 |
Monsoon in Kolkata arrives by June 10 and ends in August. The city during this period receives good amounts of rain. October and November months are pleasant in terms of weather in Kolkata. Winter in Kolkata sets in around December, peaking in January and February.
Highlights. Cyclone Amphan, one of the worst storms over the Bay of Bengal in years, is likely to hit Bengal this evening between 4 and 6 PM.
Description of the disasterThe Super Cyclonic storm Amphan (pronounced as Um-Pun) was a deadly tropical cyclone which caused widespread damage in the coastal districts of Odisha and West Bengal in India and Bangladesh.
Cyclone Amphan has left 77 people dead and thousands homeless in West Bengal, battering several parts of the state and washing away bridges and swamping low-lying areas. It also wreaked havoc in Odisha, damaging power and telecom infrastructure in several coastal districts.
In Kolkata, damaging winds up to 133 km/h (83 mph) overturned vehicles and snapped hundreds of trees. A day after cyclone Amphan wreaked havoc over the city, Kolkata woke up to scenes of destruction i.e on 21st May 2020 .
When did the cyclone amphan hit West Bengal?
May 16, 2020 – May 21, 2020
New Delhi:Cyclone Amphan, which is expected to hit Bengal on Wednesday, will weaken into an extremely severe cyclonic storm in the next six hours, the Met department has said. "Amphan", pronounced as "Um-pun", means sky. The name was given by Thailand in 2004, years ago.
Amphan took 40 hours after its formation to become a super cyclone. The main reason behind this was the high sea surface temperatures of 32-34 degrees celsius in the Bay of Bengal. General long-term warming of the Bay of Bengal was the leading cause of rapid intensification, according to experts.
Cyclone Amphan, which has killed 77 people and left thousands homeless in West Bengal, is now considered even more destructive than Cyclone Aila which slammed southern Bangladesh and eastern India in 2009, the UN has said.
It is likely to intensify into a severe cyclonic storm, in the next couple of days, is expected to affect the West Bengal and adjoining Odisha coasts, the India Meteorological Department said on Saturday.
According to the studies, destructive cyclones hit region with warm climate more because of the extra heat in the atmosphere & ocean. In the Bay of Bengal, the surface temperatures of water bodies are high which makes the condition even worse as it creates favorable conditions for the formation of the cyclone.
The next few cyclones will be named Burevi (Maldives), Tauktae (Myanmar), Yaas (Oman), and Gulab (Pakistan) as per the new list of tropical cyclone names adopted by the member countries. Storms over South Pacific and the Indian Ocean are known as cyclones.
A depression has formed over Bay of Bengal on Monday and it is likely to intensify further into a deep depression and bring widespread rainfall over Tamil Nadu, Kerala and south coastal Andhra Pradesh from December 1, the India Meteorological Department said.
The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. It is the largest water region called a bay in the world.
The practice of naming storms (tropical cyclones) began years ago in order to help in the quick identification of storms in warning messages because names are presumed to be far easier to remember than numbers and technical terms. In the beginning, storms were named arbitrarily.
