The city of Kolkata, with the nation’s fourth highest COVID-19 test positivity rate, may be in the crosshairs of the strongest impacts from the storm, setting the stage for a potential humanitarian crisis with current testing and vaccine distribution efforts.
Less than a week after the western side of India was struck by Cyclone Tauktae, a new tropical cyclone has formed in the Indian Ocean, and AccuWeather forecasters warn it’s likely to bring another direct hit to the country.
On Sunday, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) announced a well-marked area of low pressure had strengthened into a deep depression over the Bay of Bengal, which is the equivalent to a tropical storm used by the National Hurricane Center for the Atlantic and East Pacific basins. The deep depression strengthened into Cyclonic Storm Yaas on Monday morning, local time, according to the IMD.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called for the timely evacuation of those involved in offshore activities as he chaired a high-level meeting to review the preparedness of states and central government agencies to deal with the situation arising out of the budding cyclone. This is from a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.
Warm water temperatures and light wind shear over the northern Bay of Bengal can allow Yaas to continue to strengthen through early this week.
According to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Tony Zartman, Yaas is expected to track north and northwest over the Bay of Bengal.
The most likely location for landfall to occur is along the coast from northern Odisha in India to the far western coast of Bangladesh late in the day on Wednesday or Wednesday night.
“At landfall, the cyclone could be a very severe cyclonic storm,” added Zartman. This is equivalent to a Category 2 or 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale used in the Atlantic and East Pacific basins.
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As the tropical cyclone pushes inland across northeast India, it can bring widespread rainfall totals of 2-4 inches (50-100 mm) to the Indian states of northeast Odisha, West Bengal and Bihar, as well as portions of Nepal and Bangladesh.
Along the track of the storm, rainfall totals can climb as high as 8-12 inches (200-300 mm) with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 24 inches (600 mm) most likely in this area.
Flash flooding, mudslides and washouts are all possible with this amount of rainfall in such a short period of time.
In addition to flooding rain, areas along the coast of West Bengal and Bangladesh will also have to contend with storm surge as strong onshore winds arrive.
Winds can gust as high as 80-100 mph (130-160 km/h) as the storm moves onshore. An AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 125 mph (200 km/h) is expected near or just east of where the storm makes landfall.
Strong wind gusts can lead to the damage of homes and buildings as well as power outages.
Depending on the exact track of the storm, Kolkata may be in the crosshairs of the strongest impacts from the storm. The city is India’s third largest with 14.1 million residents in the metropolitan area.
Due to the expected heavy rain, flooding, strong winds and storm surge, this budding tropical system is a 4 on the AccuWeather RealImpact™ Scale for Tropical Cyclones.
After the storm moves inland and interacts with land, it will begin to lose wind intensity. By Friday, it is expected to transition into a tropical rainstorm before being ripped apart by the Himalayan Mountains in Nepal.
Western India is still recovering from a direct hit from Tropical Cyclone Tauktae, which made landfall less than a week ago on the Kathiawar Peninsula of Gujarat.
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