Just 9 days after a powerful tropical cyclone hit India along the Arabian Sea coast, a storm has struck the country’s northeast from the Bay of Bengal. According to the India Meteorological Department, Cyclone Yaas slammed into the north Odisha coast near Balasore at 10:30 local time (05:30 Universal Time) on May 26, 2021, bearing sustained winds of 120 kilometers (75 miles) per hour, the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane. The storm hit close enough to Bangladesh to have major impacts there as well.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this natural-color image of the storm after it made landfall. As its storm surge inundated low-lying coastal areas, Yaas pelted the region with heavy rains. It moved north-northwest at a speed of about 10 kilometers per hour and slowly weakened.
The storm coincided with a perigean spring tide, an especially high tide caused by the Moon and Sun being slightly closer to Earth than usual. According to news reports, Yaas has inundated hundreds of villages in Bangladesh and swamped tens of thousands of mud houses and temporary shelters in West Bengal.
References & Resources
- Hindustan Times (2021, May 26) Storm surge triggered by Yaas and spring tide inflict heavy damage in Bengal. Accessed May 26, 2021.
- India Meteorological Department (2021) Cyclone. Accessed May 26, 2021.
- Joint Typhoon Warning Center (2021, May 26) Tropical Cyclone 02B (Yaas) Warning #10. Accessed May 26, 2021.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2021, May 17) Cyclone Tauktae Strikes India.
- NOAA What is a perigean spring tide? Accessed May 26, 2021.
- The Times of India (2021, May 25) Cyclone names: Tauktae, Yaas...whatâs next? Gulab & Shaheen. Accessed May 26, 2021.
- The Weather Channel (2021, May 17) Thousands of Homes Damaged in India as Deadly Cyclone Yaas Makes Landfall (PHOTOS). Accessed May 26, 2021.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using data from the Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive & Distribution System (LAADS) and Land Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EOS (LANCE). Caption by Adam Voiland .
