‘Fani had longest life span in the bay’

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Bhubaneswar: Cyclone ‘Fani’, which pulverized parts of coastal Odisha May 3, had the longest life span among tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, an eminent meteorologist said Tuesday. “The elongated time period of the extremely severe cyclonic storm continued for eleven days in the sea and land put together and had the longest life span ever observed in the Bay of Bengal,” said SC Sahu, former Director of the Meteorological Centre here. The peculiarity of this strong cyclonic storm was the persistence of its intensity till it crossed the coast and it did not weaken following interaction with land after crossing the coast close to Brahmagiri in Puri district, he said. Besides, it did not cause extreme heavy rainfall in Odisha as was anticipated, Sahu said, adding that the storm’s surge in height, as reported by the locals at Satapada, was about ten feet while the wind speed was more than 200 km per hour. The cyclonic storm, which started as a low pressure near the equator April 24, took about two hours to cross the coast after landfall and then headed northwards towards Bhubaneswar. Odisha’s capital city was within the eye of the cyclone, the diameter of which was about 28 km. There was a lull in the cyclone for about 30 minutes after which the wind direction as well as the speed changed.