Hudhud, also known by its alphanumeric designation 03B, formed Tuesday evening U.S. time near the Andaman Islands, about 400 miles southwest of Yangon, Myanmar. The developing cyclone dumped torrential rainfall on those islands, with Port Blair reporting 248 millimeters (9.76 inches) in the 48-hour period ending at 0300 GMT Wednesday (11 p.m. EDT Tuesday).
Hudhud is now moving west-northwest and strengthening. The U.S. military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts it to become the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane as it approaches the east-central coast of India this weekend.
It was exactly a year ago that Cyclone Phailin moved over roughly the same stretch of water, making landfall in India's Odisha state on Oct. 12. The storm claimed 44 lives, but was considered an overwhelming success in India's attempts to implement emergency preparedness plans. Over one million people were evacuated ahead of the storm, and the death toll was far smaller than that of a similar tropical cyclone in 1999, which claimed some 10,000 lives.
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