Fingers crossed on Fani ...Landfall in Odisha today, Bengal braces for impact from Friday night

G.S. MUDUR, TT, 03 May 2019, New Delhi: Warnings were issued over loudhailers on Calcutta's streets, billboards were pulled down, airlines were advised not to operate in the city from Friday night and over 200 trains were cancelled in the country as the eastern coastline braced itself for an extremely severe cyclone called Fani.
Landfall in Odisha today, Bengal braces for impact from Friday night

The cyclone is expected to make landfall on Friday morning near Puri with winds up to 200kmph and affect in different ways nine districts in Odisha, eight in Bengal and three in Andhra Pradesh.

Cyclone Fani (pronounced Phoni, meaning snake) centred on Thursday morning over west-central Bay of Bengal about 210km south-southeast of Visakhapatnam and 610km south-southwest of Digha.

Winds clocking 100kpm an hour are likely to blow in Calcutta, accompanied by driving rain from

Friday night as cyclone Fani is expected to barrel into Bengal as a "severe cyclonic storm" after making landfall in Odisha on Friday morning.

The last such cyclone to have hit Calcutta was Aila in 2009. Aila had struck the Sunderbans at 110kmph and the maximum wind speed in Calcutta was 103kmph.

But Aila had hit Bengal dir- ectly from the sea and tall waves had wrecked havoc along the coasts. This time the cyclone would have already made landfall. However, it will still be a cyclone when it reaches Calcutta, the weather office has said.

The Bengal government has declared a school holiday over the weekend and several private schools too have followed suit.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have modified their campaign plans because of the looming cyclone.

Weather scientists say Fani's long journey over the sea and the heat content within the ocean has allowed the cyclone to gather enormous energy, which is contributing to its severity. "Fani formed much closer to the Equator than such tropical storms usually do -- this has given it more time to gather moisture and energy along its way towards the land," said Mrutyunjaya Mohapatra, a senior meteorologist with the IMD, New Delhi. "Warm sea temperatures in the central Bay of Bengal also contributed to its intensification," Mohapatra told The Telegraph.