NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin
Have you ever thought about what Cyclone Biparjoy looks like from space? Well, NASA has the answer to this in the form of a satellite picture that appears just as scary as it does on Earth. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite acquired a natural-colour image of the storm on June 14, a day before it was forecast to make landfall.
According to a release by NASA, the long-lived cyclone had wind speeds of 129 kilometres per hour on June 14, making it a category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.
Some 74,000 people have been shifted to shelters from Gujarat's coastal region ahead of cyclone Biparjoy's expected landfall in the Kutch district this evening.
Biparjoy developed into a cyclone in the early morning hours of June 6. According to Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, sea surface temperatures in the Arabian Sea were 31°C to 32°C in early June, which was 2°C to 4°C above the climatological mean. A rule of thumb among scientists is that ocean temperatures should be above 27°C to sustain a tropical cyclone.
According to India's Meteorological Department, Biparjoy may become the longest-lived cyclone in the Arabian Sea, overtaking Kyarr in 2019, which lasted nine days and 15 hours. As of June 14, the Arabian Sea sustained Biparjoy for over eight days.
With cyclone Biparjoy less than 200 km from the coast of Gujarat, Kachchh's Mandvi is witnessing rough sea conditions and strong winds. Classified as a "very severe cyclonic storm" of category 3, Biparjoy is expected to cross Saurashtra and Kutch and adjoining Pakistan coasts between Mandvi and Karachi near Jakhau Port between 4-8 PM, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).