page_title: Cyclone Komen
section_title: Meteorological history
hierarchical_section_title: Cyclone Komen / Meteorological history
caption_attribution_description: English: Track map of Cyclonic Storm Komen of the 2015 North Indian Ocean cyclone season. The points show the location of the storm at 6-hour intervals. The colour represents the storm's maximum sustained wind speeds as classified in the Saffir–Simpson scale (see below), and the shape of the data points represent the nature of the storm, according to the legend below. Saffir–Simpson scale Tropical depression≤38 mph≤62 km/h Category 3111–129 mph178–208 km/h Tropical storm39–73 mph63–118 km/h Category 4130–156 mph209–251 km/h Category 174–95 mph119–153 km/h Category 5≥157 mph≥252 km/h Category 296–110 mph154–177 km/h Unknown Storm type Tropical cyclone Subtropical cyclone Extratropical cyclone / Remnant low / Tropical disturbance / Monsoon depression
context_page_description: Cyclonic Storm Komen was an unusual tropical cyclone that originated near the southern coast of Bangladesh and later struck the same country while drifting over the northern Bay of Bengal. The second named storm of the 2015 season, Komen brought several days of heavy rainfall to Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India. It formed as a depression on July 26 over the Ganges delta and moved in a circular motion around the northern Bay of Bengal. Komen intensified into a 75 km/h cyclonic storm and moved ashore southeastern Bangladesh on July 30. The system turned westward over land and was last noted over eastern India on August 2.
  Across its path, Komen dropped torrential rainfall, primarily in northwestern Myanmar where the precipitation totaled at 840 mm in Paletwa. The rains compounded upon ongoing flooding and contributed to the worst flooding in the country in a century. About 1.7 million people were forced to evacuate as flood waters inundated houses to their rooftops. About 510,000 houses in the country were damaged or destroyed, and many residents lost their source of income as 667,221 acres of crop fields were damaged.
context_section_description: The monsoon spawned a low pressure area on July 25 over the extreme northern Bay of Bengal and along the southern coast of Bangladesh. With low wind shear and abundant convection south of a developing circulation, the system quickly organized. At 03:00 UTC on July 26, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) classified the system as a depression, while the circulation was nearly stationary near the southern coast of Bangladesh. Land interaction and an unfavorable phase of the Madden Julian Oscillation prevented further strengthening, despite warm water temperatures of 31 °C (88 °F). Early on July 27, the American-based Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) began monitoring the depression after the convection organized further, amplified by good outflow. Still embedded within the monsoon, the depression remained nearly stationary for two days over southern Bangladesh. The JTWC issued a tropical cyclone formation alert late on July 28, due to the increasingly defined circulation.
  On July 28, the system began moving more to the south and southeast, although its movement was very slow, possibly affected by another monsoon depression over western India. The IMD described the track as "unique", taking a "semi-circular path over the northeast Bay of Bengal." At 00:00 UTC on the next day, the IMD upgraded the depression to a deep depression, and three hours later the JTWC classified the system as Tropical Cyclone 02B, located 135 km (85 mi) southwest of Chittagong, Bangladesh. A tropical upper tropospheric trough to the northeast imparted dry air, but otherwise, conditions were generally favorable. A ridge over Myanmar turned the system to the north on July 29. During that day, the circulation was somewhat elongated and exposed from the convection, while the thunderstorms in the southern periphery organized into spiral rainbands. At 18:00 UTC on July 29, the IMD upgraded the system to Cyclonic Storm Komen, one of only four storms of such intensity in July since 1965; typically, low pressure areas that form in the month are in the extreme northern periphery of the Bay of Bengal, allowing little time to develop over waters, and usually impeded by wind shear.
  Late on July 29, the JTWC estimated that Komen attained peak 1 minute sustained winds of 75 km/h (45 mph), based on estimates from satellite imagery. As the storm approached Bangladesh, the circulation remained very broad with most of the convection in the southern periphery, although radar imagery from the coast indicated there was a formative eye feature in the storm's center. At 06:00 UTC on July 30, the IMD estimated peak 3 minute winds of 75 km/h (45 mph). Between 14:00–15:00 UTC that day, Komen made landfall on Bangladesh just west of Chittagong, and the JTWC discontinued advisories once the storm was ashore. Komen quickly weakened as it turned to the northwest through Bangladesh, steered by a ridge over Tibet to the north. On July 31, the system crossed into the Indian state of West Bengal as a weakened depression. The track shifted to the west-southwest until Komen weakened into a remnant low on August 2 over Jharkhand.
caption: Map plotting the track and the intensity of the storm, according to the Saffir–Simpson scale
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