11-10-2013 Extremely Dangerous Tropical Cyclone Phailin

This process typically weakens the top winds of a tropical cyclone by 5 - 15 mph, and satellite estimates of Phailin's central pressure increased from 910 mb to 934 mb during the eyewall replacement cycle, from 04 - 11 UTC Friday. However, satellite images show that Phailin has completed its eyewall replacement cycle and is now re-intensifying, with the cloud tops of the very intense thunderstorms in the eyewall expanding and cooling, as updrafts in the eyewall grow stronger and push the clouds higher into the atmosphere.

The latest satellite estimate of Phailin's central pressure had dropped to 920 mb as of 13 UTC (9 am EDT) on Friday, and the Joint Typhoon Warning Center upped Phailin's intensity to a Category 5 storm with 160 mph winds in their 11 am EDT Friday advisory. Radar out of Visakhapanam, India shows that heavy rains from the outer bands of Phailin are already affecting the coast, and these bands were bringing rainfall rates of over an inch per hour, as estimated by microwave data from 10:55 UTC Friday. Phailin is over ocean waters that have warmed since Thursday, and are now 29 - 30°C. These warm waters extend to a lesser depth than before, and ocean heat content has dropped to a moderate 20 - 40 kJ/cm^2. Wind shear remains low, 5 - 10 knots.

Forecast for Phailin

Phailin is likely to be the strongest tropical cyclone to affect India in fourteen years, since the great 1999 Odisha Cyclone. That terrible storm hit Northeast India in the Indian state of Odisha (formerly called Orissa) near the city of Bhubaneswar, as a Category 4 storm with 155 mph winds on October 29, 1999. The mighty cyclone, which peaked at Category 5 strength with 160 mph winds and a 912 mb central pressure shortly before landfall, drove a storm surge of at least 19' (5.9 meters) onto the coast (Kalsi et al., 2004.) The storm stalled just inland, dumping torrential rains on portions of India already saturated from the landfall of Category 4 Tropical Cyclone 04B just twelve days before. The catastrophe killed 9,658 people and left $2.5 billion in damage (1999 dollars), India's most expensive and fourth deadliest tropical cyclone in the past 100 years. The models are in tight agreement that Phailin will make landfall in Northeast India on Saturday between 09 - 15 UTC about 100 miles to the southwest of where the 1999 cyclone hit.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) is predicting that a storm surge of up to 3 meters (ten feet) will hit along a swath a coast to the right of where the center makes landfall. This region of the coast is not as low-lying, which should keep the death toll due to storm surge much lower compared to the 1999 Odisha Cyclone, where more than 70% of the deaths occurred due to the storm surge. Deforestation of the coastal mangroves in the storm surge zone was associated with increased death toll in that storm, according to Das and Vincent (2009), who concluded, "villages with wider mangroves between them and the coast experienced significantly fewer deaths than ones with narrower or no mangroves.". Given Phailin's recent recovery from its eyewall replacement cycle and subsequent re-intensification, I expect that Phailin will hit the coast as a Category 4 storm with a strength very similar to that of the 1999 Odisha Cyclone.

Bron. Wunderground.com