Cyclone Phailin commenced the stormy season in the Indian seas post southwest monsoon's last breath over northwest India. These cyclones are quite notorious for their conduct while over sea. It won’t be wrong to say that Phailin behaved predictably well both in space and time.
The most challenging aspects of these systems are direction of movement and speed along with intensity. One may not be able to mitigate the inevitable punch of a storm, but trail of destruction or colossal damage, if any, particularly to the human life can surely be minimized with adequate warning and precautionary measures like evacuation. The statement gets vindicated with display of real time coordinated efforts and team work of all concerned agencies in this recent natural calamity.
One generally gets inclined towards assessing the severity of the storm with the quantitative measure of rainfall which it dumps on ground. Quantum of rainfall may not match with the peak intensity of the system and heaviest falls may occur after the landfall and its subsequent journey.
However, it is the deadly combination of strong winds and heavy rains which result in collateral damage to both life and property. While heavy rain choke all routes (road, rail, air) the sustained gale force result in collapse of infrastructure and snapping of communication and power lines.
No two tropical storms behave in same fashion, even if they originate under identical conditions as the dynamic forcing will change their structural features. It is not at all a necessary condition. However, broadly the characteristics of cyclones will show resemblance with one another. Energy consumed and disbursed in any of these violent storms match with the energy generated in an explosion of conventional or nuclear device/bomb. That is the kind of power these cyclones possess.
