NASA's infrared image of Ockhi storm captured by Atmospheric Infrared Sounder aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on Nov. 30 at 3:17 p.m. EST showed coldest cloud tops and strongest storm just off the southwestern coast of India.
The image showed cloud top temperatures with strongest storms showing the intensifying Ockhi into a typhoon. Measuring 63 degrees Fahrenheit or minus 53 degrees Celsius, indicating the possibility of heavy rainfall battering Kerala and Karnataka coastal region in India throughout Friday.
[ALSO SEE Latest Update: Cyclone OCKHI wreaks havoc in Kerala; Approaching Mumbai, Surat next]
At 8:30 p.m. IST, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center upgraded Ockhi as a typhoon with maximum winds at 80 knots. Ockhi, located near 9.1 degrees north latitude and 72.3 degrees east longitude, is about 960 nautical miles north of Diego Garcia, speeding to the west at 7 knots (8 mph/13 kph).
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center said "by 48 hours (Dec 3 at 8:30 p.m. IST), Ockhi will begin to interact with a trough (elongated area of low pressure) and begin to track northeastward. Ockhi will begin extratropical transition as it tracks northeastward and will become extratropical as it makes landfall over northwest India."
Initially, Ockhi formed in the Northern Indian Ocean to the west of Sri Lanka with powerful bands of thunderstorms wrapping into its center from the northern quadrant on Thursday, Nov. 30. When NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over Tropical Cyclone Ockhi, a visible image of the storm showed powerful thunderstorms north of the center of circulation were spiraling into the center. The northwestern quadrant of the storm was over southwestern India.
By 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 30, Ockhi was located near 8.6 degrees north latitude and 75.2 degrees east longitude, about 100 nautical miles south-southwest of Cochin, India with winds at 55 knots, moving to the west-northwest at 12 knots (13.8 mph/22.2 kph) speed.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center forecasts Ockhi to move to the northwest and away from the coast of southwestern India. Around Dec. 3, the storm is expected to turn back to the northeast where it is forecast to make landfall on Dec. 5 north of Mumbai.
