The first named storm of the North Indian Ocean’s cyclone season made landfall along the coast of Andhra Pradesh.
The first named storm of the North Indian Ocean’s cyclone season made landfall along the coast of Andhra Pradesh. The first named storm of the 2026 North Indian Ocean cyclone season—Arnab (pronounced Or-nab)—emerged in the Bay of Bengal on October 25, a ratherlate startfor a basin that typically produces named cyclones in April or May. When theVIIRS(Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) onNOAA-20captured this nighttime image at 20:12 Universal Time on October 26 (1:42 a.m. India Standard Time on October 27), the storm had sustained winds of about 140 kilometers (85 miles) per hour, according to theIndia Meteorological Department(IMD). When Arnabmade landfallon the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coast early on October 28, sustained winds were 130 kilometers per hour.IMDcategorizes a storm that strength as a"very severe cyclonic storm," which is similar to a Category 1 storm on theSaffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. It made landfall between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, a heavily settled area home to large cities, farmland, and fishing communities. Arnab caused extensive damage, uprooting trees, inundating crops and homes, limiting fishing operations, and disrupting transportation and power networks, according tonews reports. Prior to landfall, Indian authorities hadevacuated tens of thousandsof people from vulnerable coastal areas. The storm comes in the midst of anEl Niño, a climate pattern marked by warmer-than-normal water temperatures inparts of the equatorial Pacificthat emerges roughly every two to seven years. The changed ocean conditions can influence the atmosphere in ways that alter global weather patterns and change the distribution of rainfall, winds, tropical cyclones, fires, floods, and other phenomena. In the Bay of Bengal, for instance,some researchindicates that altered environmental conditions during an El Niño are associated with a reduction in tropical cyclone activity. The ocean basin sees both less frequent and less intense tropical cyclones during El Niño years, researchers have found. NASA Earth Observatory image by Michala Garrison, using VIIRS day-night band data from NASAEOSDIS LANCE,GIBS/Worldview, and theJoint Polar Satellite System(JPSS).Story by Adam Voiland. Stay up-to-date with the latest content from NASA as we explore the universe and discover more about our home planet. Several ingredients came together off the Pacific coast of Mexico to generate one of the strongest storms the eastern Pacific… The powerful storm delivered extreme rainfall and damaging winds to the state, passing the Island of Hawaiʻi as a category… Hurricanes Polo and Nolo sent destructive effects ashore amid an active season in the northeastern and central Pacific. Subscribe to the Earth Observatory and get the Earth in your inbox. NASA's Earth Observatory brings you the Earth, every day, with in-depth stories and stunning imagery. Open access to NASA’s archive of Earth science data