As Cyclone Biparjoy Heads Towards Gujarat, NASA Shares Dramatic Pic Of Rotating Storm

NASA Earth Observatory shared the image of Cyclone Biparjoy by using VIIRS data, GIBS/Worldview, and the Joint Polar Satellite System.

Have you ever thought about what Cyclone Biparjoy looks like from space? Well, NASA has the answer to this in the form of a satellite picture that appears just as scary as it does on Earth. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite acquired a natural-colour image of the storm on June 14, a day before it was forecast to make landfall. 

According to a release by NASA, the long-lived cyclone had wind speeds of 129 kilometres per hour on June 14, making it a category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. 

Some 74,000 people have been shifted to shelters from Gujarat's coastal region ahead of cyclone Biparjoy's expected landfall in the Kutch district this evening.

Biparjoy developed into a cyclone in the early morning hours of June 6. According to Roxy Mathew Koll, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, sea surface temperatures in the Arabian Sea were 31°C to 32°C in early June, which was 2°C to 4°C above the climatological mean. A rule of thumb among scientists is that ocean temperatures should be above 27°C to sustain a tropical cyclone.