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One of the strongest tropical cyclones to ever sweep the North Indian Ocean is heading for the coasts of India and Pakistan.
Cyclone Biparjoy — the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane — reached its peak intensity on Tuesday, with peak winds of about 105 miles per hour (90 knots) in the northeast Arabian Sea.
The storm is expected to make landfall near the India-Pakistan border around noon Thursday local time sustained winds of 80 miles per hour (70 knots).), according to the India Meteorological Department. Biparjoy is expected to bring torrential rain, noxious winds and a dangerous storm surge – or seawater to rise over normally dry coastal land.
Cyclone warnings are in place for the Saurashtra and Kutch coasts in the Indian state of Gujarat, which stretch from the Pakistani border to the Gulf of Khambhat. Storm surge warnings are in place for much of the same zone.
Despite reaching Category 2 strength on Tuesday, Biparjoy is expected to weaken slightly as it nears land due to the increasingly aggressive high-altitude winds that will disrupt the storm’s organization. As it crosses the coast, maximum sustained winds are expected to drop to 90 miles per hour (80 knots), which is Category 1 strength.
The population density where Biparjoy is expected to land is comparatively low compared to much of the broader South Asian subcontinent. However, because the region is near and directly south of the Indus estuary, it is low-lying and prone to storm surges.
Power infrastructure and major port locations are widespread in the region, and several major cities lie on and near the Gulf of Kutch south of the storm’s expected landfall, where high tides could cause significant flooding.
“Experts anticipate 2-3 meter high tides during Biparjoy’s landfall,” Weather.com’s India team wrote. This “could prove particularly disastrous for coastal settlements such as the low-lying areas of Kutch, Devbhumi Dwarka, Porbandar, Jamnagar and Morbi.”
Barring wind and storms, Biparjoy is likely to provide plenty of rain. The cyclone moves at a slow forward speed, resulting in heavy rainfall. The day after landfall, the storm should intensify, but there is a risk of excessive rain, especially near the coast.
A plume of rain of 6 to 12 inches is likely to follow the storm’s path and south of the Indo-Gangetic Plains and then into the Great Indian Desert. This will cause flooding. Some landslides are also possible in all higher elevation areas, especially if the storm remnants flow into the foothills of the Himalayas.
Tropical cyclones are relatively rare in the northern Arabian Sea and typically weaken significantly before making landfall.
Biparjoy has become one of only seven storms has been shown to generate 20 or more units of accumulated cyclonic energy (ACE) in the North Indian Ocean, which is a measure of a storm’s intensity and duration. It also spawned the most ACE storms of any June storm in the region.
Cyclone Vayu in 2019 was the last storm to strike near Biparjoy. It came ashore as a rather weak tropical depression intensity system and caused some flooding across the region, followed by a peak of 1115 mph over open water to the south. Phet migrated to the northern Arabian Sea in 2010 after an attack on Oman and landed as a tropical depression south of Karachi.
In 2001, an unnamed storm took a similar path to Biparjoy and also weakened significantly upon landfall. Known as the Gujarat cyclone, the storm peaked at Category 4 hurricane magnitude, causing widespread storm surge and wave damage across western India. Hundreds of fishermen were reportedly killed by the storm.