Synthesis of Tropical Cyclone Tracks in a Risk Evaluation Perspective for the East Coast of India

Abstract

Extreme weather events such as tropical cyclones results in extensive devastation to coastal environment. The risk levels associated with cyclones that have landfall in the east coast of India is quite high, and hence there is a need to estimate as well forecast the damage risk associated with extreme winds, rainfall, storm surge, and associated coastal flooding during cyclonic events. In the present study, a comprehensive analysis was performed to generate the most probable (synthetic) cyclone track using archived information of tropical cyclone tracks from Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). The study used archived tracks of ≈ 42 years covering the periods from 1970 until 2012. The study pertains to all the four maritime states located in the east coast of India covering West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu. The respective eye location from composite tracks obtained from JTWC was used to generate synthetic track for pre- and post-monsoon cases using the inverse distance weighted method. The study has practical importance in understanding the scenarios of storm surges and associated coastal inundation utilizing the synthetic tracks. It has potential to assess the coastal and social vulnerability for the maritime states located in the east coast of India.