Portal Interactive: Recent Storms in Arabian Sea during JUNE

•  This article is written by Waseem Ahmed for PWP from Karachi city, Sindh, Pakistan

RECENT CYCLONES in Arabian Sea DURING THE MONTH OF JUNE:

Arabian Sea, about 20 years ago was known to be a ‘Silent’ or ‘Quiet’ sea and formation of storms/cyclone in this part of water was very rare. However in most of recent past it has been very active with producing some strong Tropical Systems and Monsoon Lows that caused large scale damages in many countries neighboring the Arabian Sea including Pakistan, Oman and India.

Following are some of the major Tropical Storms that formed in the month of JUNE during last 20 years.

1996; 17-19th June: A low category storm hit Indian Gujarat on 18^th June, it caused light to moderate rain in lower Sindh especially in Thar. Karachi had hot and windy days (from NE) with only few clouds on 18^th & 19^th June.

1998; 8-9^th June: A strong Cyclone 2-A hit western coast of Gujarat on early 9^th June, causing lots of damage to life and property there. Scattered places of lower Sindh received rain/thunder showers on 9^th June. Heavy showers received in many parts of Karachi on that afternoon and rain in most of city in the evening (at Maghrib), about 27 mm rain was recorded at Nazimabad area.

2007 (1); 2^nd-7^th June: Super Cyclone “Gonu”, may be the strongest storm formed in the Arabian Sea, reached its peak intensity of 240 km/h winds on 3^rd June. It hit north east Oman on 6^th June, the worst affected country by this cyclone, it also affected south east Iran coast, parts of UAE and brought some showers to extreme south west Pakistan i.e. Makran coast. Parts of Karachi and Thatta received only light shower or drizzle on 5^th June.

2007 (2); 21^st-26^th June: A Depression formed (around 20^th June) in the Bay of Bengal crossed the Deccan Plateau and entered Arabian Sea on early 24^th June, regained its intensity, became a tropical cyclone “Yemyin” and hit the Makran coast on 26^th June near Ormara & Pasni. It badly affected almost the whole of Pakistan coastal belt and its nearby areas, from Badin & Thatta to Turbat & Panjgur and caused great amount of damage.

In Karachi, right from the beginning, the area of that Depression was so large as the city started to get its effects even from 21^st June, even on that day i.e. 21^st June, the city was very hot (39°C) and a dust storm followed by a thunder shower occurred in the evening. Then on Saturday, 23^rd June, on an extremely hot day (44°C), the city experienced the most devastating dust/wind & thunder storm of its history (during 4:45 to 5:30 pm) that caused widespread damage and cost over 200 lives.

From the next day, Sunday 24^th, Karachi weather was mostly windy (ENE) and city received intermittent rains (from Sunday) till Wednesday 27^th June, especially some heavy showers with strong ESE winds received on Monday 25^th evening-night when the storm was passing nearby towards Makran. During that week of June different areas of city received 90 to 130 mm of rain.

2010: 1^st– 6^th June: The most recent cyclone “Phet” was a low pressure area in central Arabian sea that turned into a cyclone on 1^st June, Earlier its 2 to 3 ‘Forecast tracks’ were turned out wrong and it kept intensifying & moving NW towards Oman. It made its first landfall at Oman on Friday 4^th June and weakened, at the same time (early Friday) it started producing very heavy rains in Gawadar & Jiwani, at Makran coats that continued till late Saturday 5^th June (Gawadar received 325 mm record rainfall in 24 hours) then it curved and moved E in Arabian sea and made its second landfall as a depression near Thatta on Sunday 6^th June evening. From that evening to late night most of lower & some of central Sindh including Hyderabad received heavy rains.

Karachi received heavy rainfall from Saturday 5^th June late night (heaviest during 1 to 3 am) to Sunday 6^th June evening as different areas of the city received different amount of rain from 85 mm (University Road) to 150 mm (Masroor Base) and also 6^th June was the ‘coolest day of June’ in Karachi for over 20 years as maximum temperature on that day was only 28°C.

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