At a Glance

Fani slammed ashore on May 3 along the coast of eastern India.Fani was the most intense landfall in India's Odisha state since 1999.Flooding rainfall, storm surge flooding, and high winds were all threats.

Tropical Cyclone Fani plowed ashore in eastern India on May 3, 2019, as the strongest landfall in India's Odisha state in almost 20 years.

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At least 15 people were killed in India and Bangladesh due to Fani, the Associated Press reported. Lightning killed at least six of those people.

Fani intensified to the equivalent of a top-end Category 4 hurricane on the Thursday morning, as it was about 100 miles east of Visakhapatnam, India, in the Bay of Bengal. A few hours before landfall, Fani's winds were estimated by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center at 150 mph, still a strong Category 4.

Packing high winds and driving rains, in the southern part of Odisha state near the city of Puri.

Puri sustained winds of 88 mph with gusts to 108 mph. Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha state, clocked peak sustained winds of 69 mph, with gusts up to 86 mph as the center moved east of the city.

Fani dumped generally 100 to 200 millimeters of rain in parts of Odisha state. Bhubaneswar reported 200 mm - roughly 7.87 inches of rain - in 24 hours ending the morning of May 3.

Storm-surge flooding, the push of water from the Bay of Bengal toward the coast from Fani, occurred near the coast where Fani made landfall.

This storm surge could have extended well to the northeast, a life-threatening danger along a stretch of coast vulnerable to deadly storm surges, potentially including the delta region near Kolkata, India.

several days prior to landfall suggested some parts of the Odisha and West Bengal coasts could have seen a surge up to almost 4 meters (roughly 13 feet). This could include the bay near Balasore and from the mouth of the Hooghly River up the river channel some distance south of Kolkata.

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Farther north, the megacity of Kolkata sits inland about 50 miles from the coast, but on the east side of the Hooghly River. The coastal plain from Kolkata to the bay is lined with tidal creeks and riverine channels that allow the impacts of a major surge to reach well inland.

The tidal range near Kolkata is huge, about 10.1 feet, so any additional surge component from Fani would most likely be felt around high tide.

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According to the , Fani's winds were capable of heavily damaging homes, uprooting trees, flattening crops and downing power poles, leading to widespread power outages.

An Odd Spring Landfall

Spring is a typical time for the formation of tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal.

It's right before the wet phase of the South Asia monsoon develops (April-June) and right after it fades (September-early December), when upper-level winds relax enough for strong tropical cyclone development in the northern Indian Ocean.

As the monsoon's wet phase peaks in the summer, upper-level winds in the northern Indian Ocean become too brisk for strong tropical cyclones to develop. Instead, weak monsoon depressions with heavy rain can form at times.

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However, Fani's landfall in India was unusual for a tropical cyclone in spring, as most Bay of Bengal systems come ashore farther east in spring, reaching Bangladesh or Myanmar.

Along India's east coast, landfalls are more likely in the fall, when some of the nation's .

Over the last 30 years, only four other tropical cyclones of at least Category 3-equivalent intensity made landfall in India's Odisha or West Bengal states, according to . Again, all of these were in the fall, not spring.

The last to do so was Phailin in October 2013, which hammered Odisha state as a Category 4, killing 45 and inflicting $655 million in damages.

According to Colorado State University tropical scientist Dr. Phil Klotzbach, Fani was the most intense cyclone in the North Indian Ocean Basin this early in the year since 1991.