Global Discussion : Amphan Approaching LandfallAdded : Wednesday at 10:40 Regions of Northeast India around Kolkata and Bangladesh are now preparing for an impressive Tropical Cyclone Amphan which is set to make landfall in the next few hours.
When these systems approach land, one of the main misconceptions in terms of damage is to look at the sustained windspeed. With tropical systems though, this tends to be within a small core around the centre of the main system, especially when it's developing and in early mature phases.
Here is Amphan on the satellite :-
You can see the covered eye in the Bay of Bengal just off the Northeast coast of India with the system moving Northnortheast at around 9kts. Amphan is expected to make landfall around 1pm BST just to the Southeast of Kolkata with intense rainfall and winds of 100kts and gusts to 125kts.
The system has weakened over the last day or two, but the main concern aside from the winds and rain will be on the Eastern flank of the system where a large storm surge will occur due to the winds pushing the water in from the South.
When tropical systems like this start to decay, as Amphan has been over the last day or two, the wind field from the system expands and covers a larger area :-
It's this feature of the system which creates the storm surge where large waves and a fast rise in sea levels will approach the South coast of Bangladesh over the next day or so.
With Bangladesh being a predominately flat land, this storm surge is likely to be the main feature of the weather across the region.
Amphan is an impressive Tropical Cyclone for these parts. The combination of warm sea temperatures, lack of upper level wind shear due to the monsoon winds not yet developing has allowed Amphan to maintain its strength through much of the past few days.
METEOROLOGIST : MARSH |