Tropical Cyclone Mora Landfall Expected Soon
Meteorologist Ari Sarsalari forecasts the expected path of Tropical Cyclone Mora in the Bay of Bengal.
Story Highlights Tropical Cyclone Mora will landfall in Bangladesh by midday Tuesday, local time (early Tuesday morning U.S. EDT). Storm surge of up to 5 feet above normal tides is forecast. Damaging winds and rainfall flooding are also expected. An inland threat of flooding and mudslides will persist as Mora moves north. Tropical Cyclone Mora is headed for a landfall in Bangladesh by midday Tuesday, local time, with high winds and flooding from both storm surge and rainfall along a coast historically vulnerable to deadly storm surge.
Tropical Cyclone Mora was centered less than 200 miles south of Chittagong, Bangladesh, as of early Tuesday morning, local time, with winds estimated of strong tropical storm force, according to the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). Bangladesh is 10 hours ahead of U.S. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
The highest cloud tops, corresponding to the most vigorous convection, are shown in the brightest red colors. The center of the low-pressure system expected to develop is located in the central Bay of Bengal.
Mora has become a "severe cyclonic storm," or the equivalent of a strong tropical storm, and should intensify slightly more before landfall near Chittagong in the midday hours Tuesday, local time.
Chittagong is the country's second largest city, with a metro area population of roughly 4 million.
Forecast Path
The red-shaded area denotes the potential path of the center of the tropical cyclone. Note that impacts (particularly heavy rain, high surf, coastal flooding) with any tropical cyclone may spread beyond its forecast path.
The Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) has posted a "danger signal number ten" for the coastal districts of Chittagong, Cox's Bazar, Noakhali, Laxmipur, Feni, Chandpur and their offshore islands and chars for the equivalent of strong tropical storm-force winds.
Wind gusts capable of tree damage and some structural damage are also expected as the center of the cyclone passes near or over southeast Bangladesh.
BMD warns 4 to 5 feet normal tide level as the center of Mora arrives Tuesday, piling water from the Bay of Bengal into the above coastal districts.
Potential storm surge flooding from Tropical Cyclone Mora in southeast Bangladesh indicated by aqua-colored arrows. (Google Maps)
Torrential rainfall is expected along, north and to the east of the track over eastern Bangladesh, northeast India and western Myanmar, extending northward to the foothills of the Himalayas. This includes the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka, home to over 10 million, one of the world's most densely populated cities.
This heavy rainfall extending well inland could trigger life-threatening flooding and, in mountainous areas, mudslides.
Rainfall Potential Through Wednesday
Much heavier rain may occur where rainbands train across the same area for several hours.
Bay of Bengal tropical cyclones have a notoriously deadly history.
As meteorologist Chris Dolce laid out in a previous article, the northern Bay of Bengal is one of the most storm-surge-prone coastlines in the world due to a combination of dense population, very flat terrain near the coast, the narrowing of the bay on its northern edge, the shallow bathymetry of the bay and numerous small inlets.
Of the 12 tropical cyclones on record that have claimed at least 100,000 lives, eight of those formed in the Bay of Bengal, according to Weather Underground.
One of these, the infamous Great Bhola Cyclone, killed at least 300,000 in November 1970, the world's deadliest tropical cyclone of record.
In more recent times, Cyclone Nargis in 2008 devasted the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar, claiming at least 130,000 lives.
(MORE: Which Countries Get Hit Most by Tropical Cyclones?)
Less intense storms have also been very deadly in the region.
In 2015, a tropical storm-strength cyclone, Cyclone Komen, hovered near the coast of Bangladesh and brought flooding rain to six countries that killed nearly 500 people. Cyclone Komen made weeks of heavy rainfall even worse as landslides occurred in Myanmar, and more than a million people were evacuated or displaced from Myanmar alone.
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