Cyclone Bulbul finally made landfall over Indo-Bangladesh coast on Saturday night as severe cyclonic storm. Bulbul had crossed the coast abeam Sagar Islands and continues to track northeastwards. According to weathermen, the landfall process has finally finished and Bulbul is now travelling over the land towards Bangladesh. Landfall process takes about two hours to complete.
The storm was accompanied with torrential rains and high velocity winds to the tune of 110-120 kmph gusting up to 130 kmph.
As reiterated, the next 6 to 8 hours continues to be crucial for West Bengal as Bulbul would take another six hours to weaken into Cyclonic Storm after crossing coast. Thus, next 12 hours will be crucial. Storm surge will be from 8 to 10 feet that would lead to inundation in the low lying areas.
Lightning strikes are to be watched out for, which may be damaging. Coastal areas of West Bengal inclusive of Digha, Howrah, Hooghly, 24 Parganas, Medinipur are witnessing winds in excess of 100 kmph while Kolkata winds were in excess of 70-80 kmph.
Moving northeastwards further, it would head for the northeastern states of India as a depression. However, this would be not before Sunday morning.
Bulbul has already given extremely heavy rains in span of 12 hours, wherein Kolkata recorded 72 mm of rains, Digha 93 mm, and Diamond Harbour 75 mm. Heavy rains would continue to lash several parts of West Bengal throughout.
Bulbul has already crossed abeam Sagar Islands with the peripheral clouds reaching the coast. Thus, the landfall process for Severe Cyclone Bulbul has begun. The landfall is a two hour process.
The Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Bulbul’ (Pronounced as Bul bul) over northwest Bay of Bengal moved northeastwards with a speed of 11 kmph during past 06 hours, and lay centred at 2030 hrs IST of today, the 9 th November 2019, over northwest Bay of Bengal, near Lat.21.4°N and Long.
88.3°E about 40 km east-southeast of Sagar Islands (West Bengal), 85 km east-southeast of Digha, 125 km south-southwest of Kolkata,100 km south-southwest of Canning Town (west Bengal) and 210 km west-southwest of Khepupara (Bangladesh). The land fall process has started. Wall cloud region is entering into land. It is very likely to move northeastwards, weaken gradually and cross West Bengal – Bangladesh Coasts between Sagar Islands (West Bengal) and Khepupara (Bangladesh), across Sunderban delta during next 03 hours as a Severe Cyclonic Storm with maximum sustained wind speed of 110-120 Kmph gusting to 135 Kmph.
The Very Severe Cyclonic Storm Bulbul’ is being tracked by the Doppler Weather Radars at Gopalpur, Paradip and Kolkata in addition to other observing platforms.
