Hudhud is likely to be less disastrous than Phailin, at least in the state.
The “very severe cyclonic storm” — the year’s first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal — is heading towards the southeastern coast and is expected to bring moderate to heavy rainfall in Bihar around Sunday, particularly in its southern districts.
Hudhud, named by Oman, is expected to make landfall between Visakhapatnam in north Andhra Pradesh coast and Gopalpur in Odisha by the afternoon of October 12 (Sunday).
Following the landfall, southern parts of Bihar are likely to receive heavy rainfall on October 13 and 14, while northern parts would receive moderate rainfall on October 13 and isolated heavy rainfall on October 14.
Though Hudhud, means hoopoe bird in Arabic, is likely to have peak wind speed of up to 140kmph after making landfall but Patna Met office has ruled out squally winds in the state during the rains.
Ashish Sen, director, Patna meteorological centre, told The Telegraph: “Hudhud is unlikely to cause any severe impact in Bihar as it is expected to move along lower latitudes from Bihar. In moving ahead after making landfall on October 12, the system is expected to move very close to southern tip of Jharkhand and across Chhattisgarh. By the time, it would be moving close to Jharkhand, it would have been reduced to a depression.”
The Met office chief added that the impact of Hudhud over Bihar is likely to be considerably less than that caused by severe cyclonic storm Phailin last year.
“Phailin had reached Bihar as well, while Hudhud’s movement is likely to be substantially far from Bihar. Hudhud is expected to move west-north westerly after making landfall, whereas Phailin had moved north-westerly to northerly after making landfall around the same area in Odisha coast,” said Sen.
Even though Phailin had reduced in intensity and turned into low-pressure area over Bihar by the night of October 14, 2013, but torrential rains coupled with high wind speed led to damage of property and injury to several people at places like Patna, Muzaffarpur, Chhapra, Siwan, Motihari, Darbhanga, Purnea, Bettiah, Bagaha and Bhagalpur among others.
