Cyclone Montha, 1,000 Km Wide, Hit Andhra After 1,400 Km At Sea

Hyderabad: The severe cyclonic storm Montha that barrelled over Andhra Pradesh coast, dumping copious amounts of rain and wreaked havoc flooding vast areas in the neighbouring state and continued to dump rain over Telangana after it entered the state sometime around 11.30 am on Wednesday — could well be just one of such severe weather events that might well become more common in the years to come.

Montha, which began as a low-pressure area over the East-Central Bay of Bengal and gathered in strength as it moved towards land, was a behemoth with the diameter of raging clouds circling its eye, ranging from 800 to 1000 km.

“The eye itself was not very clear, as in it was not the classically formed clear area in the centre of the storm,” Dr P.L.N. Murty, scientist-E at the Cyclone Warning Division of the India Meteorological Department, said.

As Montha weaved its way across the Bay of Bengal, the eye region of the storm was estimated to be between 100 to 140 km in diameter, he said.

From the time it began as a low-pressure area and morphed into a severe cyclonic storm, and crossed over to Telangana on Wednesday, Montha traveled around 1,400 km over the waters of the Bay of Bengal. “On land, it travelled around 200 km totalling around 1,600 km till Wednesday,” Dr Murty said.

To put that distance into perspective, Montha travelled three times the road distance between Hyderabad and Tirupati.

Most of the cyclones that hit the Indian east cost, or swing away towards Bangladesh, or even Myanmar, form near the Andaman Sea area and sometimes, cyclones that form further down in the South China Sea to the east to Malaysia make their way over the Bay of Bengal and reach the Indian sub-continent.

“The cyclone season for the Bay of Bengal is from October to December. The north-westerly movement of the cyclones is normal. There is an interplay here between such storms and the Northeast monsoon too. As it begins to press southwards, it pushes the cyclones towards south of India. Typically, cyclones that come in October head towards Odisha or West Bengal, but since the Northeast monsoon is still not developed, there was no downward push from the monsoon winds and hence Montha made its landfall over Andhra Pradesh,” Dr Murty said.

It is because of the Northeast monsoon winds that the cyclones in November typically land in Odisha or AP, while the ones that form in December mostly hit Tamil Nadu, he said.

Asked about the intensity of Montha, Dr Murty said one of the factors is the warming up of the planet. “The oceans have been warming up over the past several decades. Though the number of cyclones over the Bay of Bengal has been showing a declining trend, the intensity of some of them has been rising. In the past, we used to have maybe two intense cyclones in the season, but now it is three or four a year,” he said.