HUNT OF THE HUDHUD

Nikunja Bihari Sahu

History repeats itself! While on October 12, 2013, the Sapphire (referred to as the cyclonic storm Phailin meaning ‘Sapphire’ in the Thai language) shone brightly on the Odisha crest, exactly a year later the Hoopoe (referred to as the cyclonic storm Hudhud) flapped its wings vigorously in its hunt for the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. The irony was that: Hudhud spared Odisha but stared at Andhra. Named according to the beautiful bird Hoopoe (having a spectacularly colourful appendage on its head) that featured in the story of King Solomon, the Hudhud (Name suggested by Oman) was the strongest and the fiercest tropical cyclone in the North Indian Ocean of 2014 to have ever hit India. Hudhud mainly pounded the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh with heavy rain and winds of almost 200 km/h leaving a trail of devastation with the port city of Visakhapatnam bearing the brunt of the storm’s aggression. Thousands of people were evacuated from towns and villages on the cyclone’s path amid massive rain and wind. The Cyclone has flattened thousands of mud and thatched houses and torn down road and communication links.

The cyclone had an interesting course of development ever since its origin in the far seas that acquired immense popularity amongst people like never before as it unfolded over the Andhra and Odisha coast. Hudhud not only emerged as the first high-intensity cyclonic storm of 2014 to make landfall at wind speeds of 206 km/h, but also the third highest intensity cyclonic storm out of the 515 cyclonic storms recorded in the whole of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea together since 1891.

ORIGN AND DEVELOPMENT

Under the influence of an upper air cyclonic circulation, a Low-Pressure area was formed over the Andaman Sea on October 6. It slowly consolidated and was upgraded to a Depression status by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on October 7. While over open waters, the Depression continued to encounter favorable conditions and consolidated further as IMD upgraded the system to a state of Deep Depression. The IMD later reported that the Deep Depression made its first landfall over the Long Island in Andaman and had reached Cyclonic intensity and eventually named it as Hudhud. After entering into the Bay of Bengal, Hudhud continued to intensify and was upgraded to a Severe Cyclonic storm status. Consequently, the IMD upgraded Hudhud to a Very Severe Cyclonic storm on October 10. On October 11, Hudhud underwent rapid intensification and developed an Eye at its center. Eventually, the Cyclone reached its peak intensity with 3 minute sustained average wind speed of 175 km/h. It has also been reported that the wind speeds have reached as high as 250 km/h as recorded by the Indian Navy ships anchored off the coast. Maintaining the awesome intensity, the Cyclone made its landfall near Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh in the early hours of October 12.

Bringing extensive havoc to the coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, Hudhud gradually weakened as it curved northwards over land. The Cyclone continued its weakening trend and was last observed as a well-marked low-pressure area over east Uttar Pradesh on October 14.

DAMAGE AND DESTRUCTION

The storm caused enormous damage to the coastal states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha with the former bearing the major brunt of the aggression. Damages are estimated to be between Rupees 60,000 to 70,000 Crores . At least 94 deaths have been confirmed with a majority of them happening in Andhra Pradesh. The Cyclone directly struck the port city Vishakhapatnam and caused extensive damage to its infrastructure and, in this respect, Vishakhapatnam became the first city in the country to be directly hit by a Cyclone since 1891 as per the records of the IMD.

In light of the Cyclone, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) mobilized 35 units in Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The East Coast Railway canceled services of 38 trains on October 12 during the Cyclone’s landfall. The Andaman authorities shut down roads, closed schools and canceled ferry services in and around the Islands. An alert was sounded in 9 out of 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh where standing crops like Paddy, Groundnut, Sugarcane, and Pulses were yet to be harvested. Over 7,00,000 people, including 5,00,000 people in Andhra Pradesh alone, were evacuated and put up in relief camps.

The Odisha Government also placed 16 districts under high alert. At the time of the Cyclone's landfall, strong wind gusts and heavy rainfall incessantly battered many Southern districts of the state leading to disruption in power and communication network. Hudhud also reportedly caused sudden weather changes in the neighboring country of Nepal that have been said to have resulted in an avalanche on Mount Dhaulagiri. Hudhud has indeed left people scarred and scared.

SCIENCE BEHIND CYCLONE

Given the vast devastation as described above, the huge strength of the Cyclone can be easily understood. The secret to its enormous prowess lies on a very basic property of Water. Water, unlike all other liquids, has a high Latent Heat of Vaporization which is essentially the heat released when Water in gaseous state changes its form to liquid state as a result of Condensation. This value for Water is 2.5 x 106 J/kg in contrast to other liquids like Ammonia: 1.2 x 106 J/kg, Propane: 4.2 x 105 J/kg, Ether: 3.9 x 105 J/kg, Carbon Tetrachloride: 2 .2 x 105 J/kg.

The Cyclone has its humble beginning as a small twister over the far seas as the sunrays heat up water surface producing a copious mass of warm and moist air. Sometimes, the moist air mass lays stationary as a huge cloud over the sea surface without dispersing out. This mass is highly unstable in nature that eventually becomes the cradle for the Cyclone. Further heating causes streams of air to rise up within the moist air cloud creating a low-pressure region there. A surrounding mass of moist air rushes towards the region that curves around due to the Earth’s spin. On reaching the Low-pressure centre, the mass of moist air rises upward and expands suddenly at the higher atmosphere eventually getting cooled. The cooling triggers the condensation of millions of water vapours present in the moist air releasing a large quantity of heat to the surroundings due to the high Latent heat of Water. The heat that was released evaporates more amount of moist air from the sea surface that further feeds and fuels the storm and keeps it raging for weeks with wind speeds reaching as high as 300 km/h. Although the common name for such typical storms is Hurricanes, these are named differently in different local regions such as Typhoons in the Pacific and Cyclones in the Bay of Bengal. The word Cyclone is actually a Greek word that means coil of a Snake which was first used by a British meteorologist to refer to small depressions created over the Bay of Bengal.

Eventually, the storm of the heads of the far sea towards the land and appears as a killer to be reckoned with. But on reaching the land, it quickly subsides as no moist air is available to keep its cyclic process going. Before that, it had caused widespread damage to life and property.

PHAILIN AND HUDHUD: SIMILAR YET DIFFERENT

Hudhud is almost similar to its predecessor cyclone Phailin which crossed the Odisha coast leaving behind a trail of destruction. Although Phailin and Hudhud were Very Severe Cyclonic storms to have hit the eastern coast of India, they are different in many respects. Phailin’s landfall site was Gopalpur in Ganjam district of Odisha while Hudhud made landfall near the port city of Visakhapatnam in the neighboring state of Andhra Pradesh. Phailin had hit the Odisha coast with a wind speed of nearly 210 to 220 km/h severely impacting 14 southerly districts. Hudhud, however, arrived in the same region with much lesser velocity of about 70-80 km/h.

WEATHER FORECASTING HAS COME OF AGE

Of the 23 cyclones in the last 300 years that have each resulted in the loss of more than 10,000 lives, 20 have been formed over the Bay of Bengal and affected India. Almost 75 % of the cyclones that have killed more than 5,000 people during this time have originated in this region. This, despite the fact that only 7 % of the World’s cyclones in a year are generated in this part of the globe and also that cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea are of moderate intensity as compared to the hurricanes raged the in the Western Atlantic and Typhoons in the Western Pacific regions.

One reason for the heavy casualty in the past is that the Indian coastline is densely populated. During the Super Cyclone of 1999, a total of 10,000 people in Odisha perished. But the situation has drastically changed over the years since then; because the death toll has been considerably reduced as evident by the Phailin and the Hudhud incidents. Phailin left only 38 people dead while for Hudhud, the death toll was estimated at around 100. The less number of the death toll for Phailin and Hudhud is probably due to the accurate forecasting of Weather, and hence, it needs special mention. Weather forecasting, nowadays, has come of age and the science has developed considerably enabling nearly reliable prediction of cyclones over the far seas facilitating planning and executing of post-cyclone rescue and relief operations in an efficient manner. Modern Meteorology (or Weather forecasting) is a vast, complex and interdisciplinary subject that requires the collection of various weather parameter variables (such as Temperature, Air Pressure, Humidity, Wind Velocity, etc.) from various sources like weather stations, ships, buoys, aircraft, radars, weather balloons, and satellites; high-speed analysis of the data and predicting the weather with the help of computer Models. With the advent of the Space Age, it has now become possible to directly see the storm with geostationary remote-sensing satellites and monitor its progress by satellite imagery as it heads toward the land. The advent of Super Computers also allows the handling of a vast amount of data for processing in a quick span of time. All these factors enable an Early Warning to be issued reasonably before the assault and thanks to the modern age of media and ICT connectivity that ensures dissemination of the message to the people in no time.

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