The Nagapattinam-Puducherry-Chennai belt on the eastern seaboard is the favoured point of landfall as Cyclone Nilam races in from southwest Bay of Bengal.
US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) estimates wind speeds exceeding 100 km/hr gusting up to 130 km/hr when the landfall occurs later today.
This would place ‘Nilam’ only slightly less intense than superstorm Sandy, which has ravaged a vast area of geography in the US over the past couple of days.
But the area impacted would be reduced many times over in Nilam’s case; this is because Sandy had also interacted with two winter storms over the mainland.
As for Nilam, JTWC ventures to even zero in on the Cuddalore-Puducherry belt for the landfall, in near replication of what Cyclone Thane did earlier last year.
It also cited forecasts suggesting that post-landfall, the system might break up, with a splinter system spinning away towards coastal Karnataka-Konkan.
US National Centres for Environmental Prediction too has indicated the possibility, but says the other splinter guiding itself north along the coast towards Chennai.
London-based Tropical Storm Risk Group says Trincomalee in Sri Lanka is equally at risk from cyclone Nilam as it makes a landfall.
An India Meteorological Department (IMD) update late last night had located ‘Nilam’ 450 km south-southeast of Chennai.
According to JTWC, it is expected to travel west-northwest (as against strictly northwest) which favours a landfall area more southward of Chennai than earlier thought.