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Cyclone Fengal is a slow-moving cyclone which will dissipate as it moves into the interior of the southern Indian peninsula, S Balachandran from the India Meteorological Department (IMD)’s Regional Meteorological Centre told Down To Earth (DTE) on December 1 as the Indian Army was called in for rescue operations in Puducherry.
“Cyclone Fengal is now practically stationary near Puducherry and will slowly move in a westward direction. As it moves inland, the friction from the ground below will slowly lead to its dissipation. But before that, it will dump a lot of rain on the ground,” added Balachandran.
The storm has already wrought havoc on Puducherry as per the IMD. In a social media post, IMD noted that the city of Puducherry recorded 48.4 centimetres of rainfall during the past 24 hours till 8.30 am on December 1.
This is the highest 24-hours cumulative rainfall in last 30-years for the period 1995-2024, added IMD.
Meanwhile, the Southern Command of the Indian Army in Chennai posted on X that, “#IndianArmy troops from #Chennai promptly responded to a call for aid from the District Collector, #Puducherry, following Cyclone Fengal. A 70-member HADR column, led by Maj Ajay Sangwan, reached Puducherry at 05:30 AM on 01 Dec 2024. Rescue operations began at 06:15 AM in the severely flooded Krishnanagar area, where water levels had risen to 5 feet. The column has rescued 100 stranded civilians so far showcasing unwavering dedication. Relief efforts continue to ensure the safety of those affected.”
On the morning of December 1, IMD posted that Fengal had been practically stationary for six hours over north coastal Tamil Nadu & Puducherry “and lay centered at 0530 hours IST of today, the 1st December 2024 over the same region near latitude 12.0°N and longitude 79.8°E, close to Puducherry, about 30 km north of Cuddalore, 40 km east of Villupuram and 120 km south-southwest of Chennai”.
The storm was likely to move westwards slowly and weaken gradually into a deep depression over north coastal Tamil Nadu and Puducherry during the next six hours, IMD added.
A study published in 2018 found that tropical cyclones are taking substantially longer to move from place to place.
Jim Kossin, a scientist with US government agency National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), found that globally, tropical cyclones slowed by 10 per cent between 1949 and 2016.
This can pose grave dangers. “With additional water vapour in the atmosphere in a warming world, as little as a 10 per cent slowdown could double local rainfall and flooding impacts caused by 1°C of warming,” a note on the NCEI website reads.
Tropical cyclones have slowed in both hemispheres and in every ocean basin except the Northern Indian Ocean. But tropical cyclones have generally slowed more in the Northern Hemisphere, where more of these storms typically occur each year, as per A Global Slowdown of Tropical Cyclone Translation Speed, published in Nature.