A Very Severe Cyclonic Storm “Nargis” of 27 April-3 May, 2008 over North Indian Ocean

Akhilesh Gupta
Scientist-G/ Adviser
Ministry of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences
New Delhi, India

June 25, 2008
NCAR FL1 Room 1022
3:00 pm

A depression formed over southeast Bay of Bengal in the morning of 27th April 2008. Under favourable conditions, it intensified into a cyclonic storm (which was named “NARGIS”) in the morning of 28th and into a very severe cyclonic storm on 29th morning. The system initially moved in a northwesterly direction and then recurved northeastwards and crossed southwest coast of Myanmar near Lat. 16.00N between 1200 and 1400 UTC of 2nd May 2008. The cyclone was one of the most devastating ones in the region, after April 1991 Bangladesh cyclone in terms of loss of life and property.

By using mostly satellite data (INSAT-Kalpana) and NWP models, Indian organizations like IMD, NCMRWF, IIT Dehli were able to provide quite consistent and reliable forecasting. Products from ECMWF, NCEP, UMKO etc provided additional important forecasting information. This talk will discuss the tracking, modeling and prediction of this storm used by the Government of India agencies during the cyclone.