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If you have followed Cyclone Arnab today, you have probably seen two different wind speeds quoted as if they were the same forecast: gusts of 140 kmph in some reports, and gusts of 150 kmph in others. Neither outlet invented its number. Both figures come from reporting of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) — but they describe the storm at different hours, and the outlets quoting them have not always said so. This post untangles the two numbers, states plainly which figure the IMD bulletin gives for landfall itself, and adds what changed by Tuesday evening. Our midday update tracked the storm's upgrade to very severe status; our original Arnab explainer traces how it built from a depression.
The two numbers, with their hours attached
Here is the timeline as reported from the IMD's bulletins. The IMD's bulletin carried by PTI — and reproduced by DD India, The Week and others — puts the storm at 260 km southeast of Visakhapatnam at 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, October 27, moving at 22 kmph over the previous six hours, and forecasts landfall with maximum sustained winds of 115–125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph. That is the bulletin's landfall figure, for the forenoon of Wednesday, October 28, when Arnab is expected to cross the Andhra Pradesh and Yanam coasts between Bapatla and Visakhapatnam, close to Yanam.
The higher figure — sustained 125–135 kmph gusting to 150 kmph — is also IMD reporting, but for an earlier step in the same forecast: the storm's intensity around 5:30 a.m. on Wednesday, while it is still at very severe strength near the coast, before it weakens slightly by landfall. IMD Bhubaneswar Director Manorama Mohanty and Cyclone Warning Centre Director P. L. N. Murthy are both quoted giving the 125–135 kmph, gusting to 150 kmph figures in that context, and The Hindu's live blog, updated at 1:04 p.m. on Tuesday, headlines it as a raised wind forecast. The Financial Express tracker makes the relationship explicit: its 1:10 p.m. entry says the IMD's latest update put maximum sustained winds at 115–125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph, while "an earlier forecast cited winds of 125–135 kmph, gusting up to 150 kmph". Read together, the two numbers are not a contradiction — they are a forecast track, with the storm strongest offshore and a little weaker at the moment it crosses the coast.
Why the confusion happened
The confusion has three causes, all ordinary. First, a cyclone forecast is a table of values at six-hour steps, not a single number, and a headline can only carry one of them. Second, the storm's peak winds over the open sea on Tuesday were higher still: according to an IMD-based report, sustained winds around the centre reached 130–140 kmph gusting to 155 kmph, with 150–160 kmph gusting to 180 kmph expected over the sea between 11:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday — figures that describe the sea, not the coast, and should never be quoted as a landfall forecast. Third, different bulletins land at different times of day, so a morning bulletin and an afternoon live blog can honestly carry different "latest" figures. The safe way to read any Arnab wind number is to ask two questions: at what hour, and over sea or at landfall? If a report answers neither, treat its number as unverified.
What else changed by Tuesday evening
Whatever the exact gust at landfall, the human response has scaled up sharply. By 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, the IMD placed Arnab about 220 km from Visakhapatnam and 240 km from Kakinada. Nearly 89,000 people on the Kakinada coast were being moved to 101 relief camps, and Odisha planned to evacuate 48,000 people, with schools closed and fishing banned and rescue teams on standby. The railways cancelled at least 61 trains, most of them in the Godavari–Krishna delta, up from the 53 cancellations reported in the morning; at Visakhapatnam airport, four flights were cancelled and four diverted. A storm surge of 1.0 to 1.5 metres above the astronomical tide is expected mainly near Kakinada and Yanam, and a red alert covers 12 Andhra Pradesh districts for October 28. Heavy rain has already begun in north coastal Andhra Pradesh, with heavy to very heavy rain forecast for Odisha, West Bengal and Jharkhand over the next three days — and, as reported earlier in the day, West Bengal's heavy-rain window runs to October 30 for the southern districts.
The practical point is the one the IMD itself keeps making: do not plan around a single gust figure. The landfall forecast in the bulletin is 115–125 kmph gusting to 140 kmph, the storm will be stronger than that offshore in the hours before, and the rain, surge and disruption will reach far beyond the landfall point. Anyone in the coastal districts should follow the latest IMD bulletin and local administration orders rather than any single headline number — including this one. Sources: The Hindu live updates on Arnab and Financial Express Arnab tracker.