Qz.com - by Eric Holthaus - 11 October, 2013
This is the view from India’s Kalpana weather satellite
With landfall in less than 24 hours (Saturday Oct. 12 in the afternoon, India time), final preparations are underway in India for Cyclone Phailin—now officially the strongest storm ever measured in the Indian Ocean. The image above shows the storm’s core as it approaches the coastline. (See our earlier coverage on why Phailin’s landfall in this particularly volatile part of India is especially unwelcome.)
The storm has strengthened at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, going from a tropical storm to a category 4 cyclone in only 24 hours. On Friday (Oct. 11), it became the equivalent of a category 5 hurricane—the strongest on the American scale—with sustained winds of 160 mph (260 kph). That official wind speed has tied Phailin with the devastating 1999 Orissa Cyclone which killed more than 10,000 people—currently India’s strongest storm ever. Cyclones in India are the same as hurricanes in the United States — different words for the same thing.
