Cyclone Yaas

India Meteorological Department (IMD) has announced that Cyclone Yaas is likely to intensify into a “very severe cyclonic storm”.

Cyclones are caused by atmospheric disturbances around a low-pressure area distinguished by swift and often destructive air circulation. Cyclones are usually accompanied by violent storms and bad weather.
The air circulates inward in an anticlockwise direction in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern hemisphere. Cyclones are classified as: (i) extra tropical cyclones (also called temperate cyclones); and (ii) tropical cyclones. Cyclones are characterized by inward-spiraling winds that rotate about a zone of low pressure.

The criteria below have been formulated by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), which classifies the low pressure systems in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea on the basis of capacity to damage, which is adopted by the World Meteorological Organization.

The Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal are both a part of the Indian Ocean, which extends on the west along the African coast and Madagascar upto the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf of Oman, down to the North Indian Ocean below India, along the Andaman Sea, and goes all the way to the Australian coast.
The West Indian Ocean normally sees a small number of cyclones and tropical storms. Between 1891 and 2000, 48 tropical cyclones impacted the west coast, of which 24 were severe cyclonic storms, while about 308 cyclones, including 103 severe cyclonic storms, impacted the east coast of the country from the Bay of Bengal.
Warmer waters of Bay of Bengal are typically more prone to cyclones than cooler Arabian Sea. But there is now a visibly increasing trend of more frequent, intense storms on the west coast.
However, in the past few decades, the average number of storms to occur over the Arabian Sea and the time of the year when they do have both demonstrated a changing trend.
Overall, there was a 32 percent rise in the number of cyclones that hit India between the years of 2014 and 2019.
The changing trends are consistent with rising temperatures in the Indian Ocean. A 2014 study found that while the temperature of the Indian Ocean rose overall by 0.7 degrees Celsius, the generally colder western Indian Ocean experienced an unexpected warming of 1.2 degrees Celsius in the summer.

India has considered the hazard risk mitigation approach through short term and long term measures, which lay greater emphasis on prevention, preparedness and mitigation.
To give effect to the strategic interventions, the Ministry of Home Affairs decided to put in place the “National Cyclone Risk Mitigation Project”.
After the formation of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), the management of the Project was transferred to NDMA in 2006.

To know more about how cyclones are formed: https://officerspulse.com/cyclones/

Today Current Affairs Upsc Exam Syllabus & Previous Yearpaper.