Probability Distributions for Cyclone

Key Parameters and Cyclonic Wind

Speed for the East Coast of Indian
Region
by

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta

Reprinted from

International Journal of
Ocean and
Climate Systems
Volume 2 · Number 3 · September 2011

Multi-Science Publishing
ISSN 1759-3131
 209

Probability Distributions for Cyclone

Key Parameters and Cyclonic Wind
Speed for the East Coast of
Indian Region
Pradeep K. Goyala, T.K. Dattab
aGovt.
Engineering College, Ajmer,Rajasthan,India,305001
Email:pk_goyal2003@[Link]
bDepartment of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India,110016

Email: tushar_k_datta@[Link]

Abstract
This paper presents a study conducted on the probabilistic distribution of key cyclone
parameters and the cyclonic wind speed by analyzing the cyclone track records obtained
from India meteorological department for east coast region of India. The dataset of
historical landfalling storm tracks in India from 1975-2007 with latitude /longitude and
landfall locations are used to map the cyclone tracks in a region of study. The statistical
tests were performed to find a best fit distribution to the track data for each cyclone
parameter. These parameters include central pressure difference, the radius of maximum
wind speed, the translation velocity , track angle with site and are used to generate digital
simulated cyclones using wind field simulation techniques. For this, different sets of
values for all the cyclone key parameters are generated randomly from their probability
distributions. Using these simulated values of the cyclone key parameters, the
distribution of wind velocity at a particular site is obtained. The same distribution of wind
velocity at the site is also obtained from actual track records and using the distributions
of the cyclone key parameters as published in the literature. The simulated distribution is
compared with the wind speed distributions obtained from actual track records. The
findings are useful in cyclone disaster mitigation.

Keywords: Tropical cyclones; Bay of Bengal; Simulation; Track; Wind speed

1. INTRODUCTION
The Indian subcontinent is one of the six most vulnerable cyclone prone regions in the world.
Approximately four to five cyclones and about one to two cyclones occur every year in the Bay of
Bengal and in the Arabian Sea, respectively. The coastal states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa,
West Bengal, and Gujarat are severely affected because of the occurrences of cyclonic storms. During
the decade of 1980 to 1990, the estimated average annual loss was around Rs. 200 crores (44 million
USD) and that between 1996 to 1999 was around Rs. 8000 crores (Lakshmanan et al., 2007).
Wind and storm surge are the crucial factors in the determination of how much damage occurs in
association with any particular tropical cyclone. Among this the damages arising due to strong winds
is of particular importance in coastal areas. Thus, cyclone hazard analysis is very crucial in cyclone
disaster mitigation system.
Along the coastline of India, there are no credible direct measurements of wind speeds. As a result,
no statistical analysis could be carried to find return periods of the cyclonic wind speeds from direct
measurements. This is a major problem when considering cyclone wind statistics for hazard analysis or
risk assessment of a region. The mathematical simulation of hurricanes is the most accepted approach
for estimating wind speeds for the design of structures and assessment of hurricane risk. The simulation

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210 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

approach is used in the development of the design wind speed maps in the United States. Russell (1971)
first employed mathematical simulation methods to estimate hurricane wind speeds for the Texas coast.
Others used the similar mathematical simulation methods to estimate design wind speeds for the US
coastlines (Russell and Schueller, 1974; Tryggvason, et al., 1976; Georgiou, et al., 1983; Vickery and
Twisdale, 1995a, 1995b). The study of Batts, et al. (1980) was a milestone and the first study to
examine the entire U.S. coastline, which provided a rational way to determine the design wind speeds
of the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of the United States. The basic approach in all these studies is similar
in that the site specific statistics of key parameters including central pressure difference, radius of
maximum winds, heading, translation speed, and the landfall location or distance of closest approach
are obtained.
In this paper, the probability distribution functions of cyclone key parameters are obtained from the
landfalling track records of Indian coastal region. These probability distributions are compared with
those available in the literature. Using these probability distributions, distribution of the cyclonic wind
speed for a particular site in the coastal region is obtained and compared with the distribution obtained
from actual track records.

2. DATA SOURCES AND CYCLONIC KEY PARAMETERS

For the present study, landfalling tropical storms formed over the Bay of Bengal during the period
1975-2007 are considered. The hourly latitude/longitude information of cyclone tracks are collected
from the Journals of Meteorology and Geophysics, Regional Specialised Meteorological (RSMC)
reports, Mausam Journals published by India Meteorological Department (IMD) and database of the
Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC). The latitude/longitude information of cyclone tracks is mapped
and landfall locations are assigned.
Key cyclone parameters are defined as the parameters which can uniquely determine a wind field.
These key parameters are (i) central pressure difference, ∆p (ii) the radius of maximum wind speed,
Rmax, (iii) the translation velocity of cyclone track, VT, and (iv) track angle with site (α).

2.1 Central Pressure Difference

The maximum difference between storm central pressure (po) and pressure at the storm periphery (pe)
of a cyclone denoted as ∆p, plays a very important role in determining the wind speed. The pressure at
the storm periphery (pe) is assumed as the ambient atmospheric pressure (1013.25 hPa).
In the absence of central pressure information from track records, the central pressure can be
estimated using the pressure-wind relationship, given the sustained wind speed (Vm) of the cyclone.
Mishra and Gupta (1976) has developed a regionally based relationship for the Indian seas. The
relationship is

Vm = 14.2 ( pe − po ) (1)

where pe is the peripheral pressure and po is the pressure at the centre of the storm.
The central pressure difference can be calculated by using the relation

∆p = 1013.25 − po (2)

2.2 Radius of the Maximum Wind Speed

The radius of maximum wind speed, Rmax, is the radial distance between the vortex and region of
maximum wind speeds. Radius of maximum wind is one of the key variable associated with the
structure of a cyclone. Unfortunately, database of JTWC and IMD do not include the data of radius of
maximum wind of the cyclonic storms. Therefore, the radius of maximum wind for different wind
speeds in the Bay of Bengal has been taken from World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and is
shown in Table 1 (WMO, 2001).

International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta 211

Table 1. Radius of maximum wind for different wind speeds

Cyclonic Maximum Wind Radius

Class Disturbance Speed (km/h) (km)
D Depression 31-51 26
DD Deep depression 52-61 29
CS Cyclonic storm 62-88 32
SCS Severe cyclonic storm 89-118 38
SCSH Severe cyclonic storm with hurricane intensity 119-221 44
SSCS Super cyclonic storm >222 44

2.3 Translation Velocity

VT denotes the translation velocity of cyclone track. It can be obtained by dividing the distance between
two points of storm track by the travel time. Distance between two positions (point) of storm track can
be calculated by using Haversine formula as given below.

∆lat = lat 2 − lat1 


∆long = long2 − long1 

a = sin 2 ( ∆lat / 2 ) + coos(lat1 ).cos(lat 2 ).sin 2 ( ∆long / 2 )  (3)

c = [Link] 2( a , (1 − a ) ) 
d = R.c 

where lat1 and lat2 are the latitudes of point 1 and point 2, respectively, long1 and long2 are the longitudes
of point 1 and point 2, respectively, the two argument function atan2 is a variation of the arctangent
function, R is the radius of earth (mean radius = 6,371 km), and d is the distance between point 1 and 2.

2.4 Heading Direction

Cyclone Heading direction (θ ) is determined by using harvesting formula. In this study, the heading
direction towards north is defined as zero, while clockwise is positive and counter clockwise negative.

θ = a tan 2(sin(∆long ).cos(lat 2 ), cos(lat1 ).sin(lat 2 ) − sin(lat1 ).cos(lat 2 ).cos(∆long )) (4)

2.5 Track Angle with Site

Track angle with north is calculated as per the procedure followed in heading direction. Track angle
with site (α) is determined by using heading direction and track angle with north.

3. METHODOLOGY
The first step of cyclone wind hazard exposure analysis is to establish a cyclone recurrence model for the
site of interest. Cyclone recurrence rate is derived from the frequency of past cyclones or the occurrence
in region of interest. The probabilistic model of recurrence is usually described by homogeneous
(uniform) Poisson distribution (Batts et al., 1980; Georgiou et al., 1983; Chang, 2003), Markov chain
process model, and periodic Poisson process (Russell and schueller, 1974). The homogeneous Poisson
process has been widely accepted as an appropriate model to describe the annual recurrence rate of
cyclonic events. The probability of n cyclones occurring at time t can be expressed as:

(λt )n − λt
P(n, t ) = e (5)
n!

where P(n, t) is the probability function and λ is the average tropical cyclone occurrence rate per year.

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212 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

The second step consists of finding gradient wind speed as a function of cyclone key parameters.
For this purposes, the wind speed distribution in the radial direction is determined from the equilibrium
between the centrifugal force of a rotating air mass with the atmospheric pressure gradient and the
Coriolis forces. The gradient wind speed (Holmes, 2001) can be written as

rf f 2 r 2 r ∂p
Vg = − + + (6)
2 4 ρ ∂r

where f is the Coriolis parameter (= 2Ω sin Φ); Φ is the latitude and Ω is the angular velocity of Earth,
∂p
r is the radial distance from the storm centre to the point of interest, ρ is the density of air, and is
∂r
the horizontal pressure gradient.
Using Eq. (6) a suitable function for pressure gradient can be established (Holland, 1980).

 A
p = p0 + ( pe − p0 )exp  − B  (7)
 r 

where p is the pressure of the site of interest, po is the central pressure of the tropical cyclone, pe is the
atmospheric pressure at the edge of storm ( pe is the undisturbed environmental pressure), r is the
distance from the storm centre to the point of interest and A and B are scaling parameters. The pressure
difference (pe – po) can be expressed in the form ∆p, and is an indication of the strength of the storm.
Differentiating Eq. (7) and substituting in Eq. (6), we have:

rf r 2 f 2 ∆p AB  A
Vg = − + + exp  − B  (8)
2 4 ρ r B
 r 

Scale parameters A and B are related with the radius of maximum wind as

Rmax = A1/ B (9)

By using Eq. (8) and Eq. (9)

B B
rf r2 f 2 ∆p  R   R 
Vg = − + + B  max  exp  − max  (10)
2 4 ρ  r   r 

Hubbert et al. (1991) suggested that B could be empirically determined by

(980 − po )
B = 1.5 + (11)
120
where po is the central pressure of a tropical cyclone.
After the translation of hurricane is taken into account, the 1-minute average wind speed at
10-meter above the sea surface (Chang and Lindell, 2005) can be given by

V10 = 0.8 Vg + 1.75 VT0.63 cos α (12)

where V10 denotes the 1-minute average wind speed at 10-meter above the sea surface, Vg denotes the
gradient wind speed given by Eq. (10), VT denotes translation velocity of the cyclone centre, and α
denotes the angle between the hurricane track and surface wind direction in region of interest based on
wind field model as shown in Figure 1. The 1-minute average wind velocity can be converted into
different time period interval (Durst, 1960; Krayer and Marshall, 1992; WMO, 1983). Note that

International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta 213

(∆p, VT, Rmax, θ) θ

Site
α
r

Coast line Cyclone Track

Figure 1. Wind field model

1-minute average wind speed is considered following the norms adopted by the United States National
Weather Service (USNWS) which defines sustained winds within tropical cyclones by averaging winds
over a period of one-minute (National Weather Service, 2008). This is an important distinction between
WMO and USNWS is defining the sustained winds within tropical cyclones. The value of 1-minute
average sustained wind speed is reported to be 14% greater than a 10 minutes average sustained wind
speed as adopted by WMO (Sampson et al., 1995).
The third step consists of estimating the probability of cyclonic wind speed exceeding a given
threshold speed at a given site in a given time period. The information about wind speeds and
occurrences is combined as follows.
The wind speed data derived from the cyclones passing through the region of interest are rank
ordered and then used to define the wind speed probability distribution conditional on storm being
within 250 km of the site, Fv [P(V < v)].
The probability that the tropical cyclone wind speed V is exceeded a threshold value v during time
period t is
∞
P(V > v, t ) = ∑ P(V > v n ) P(n, t ) (13)
n=0

where P(V > v n ) is the probability of cyclone wind speed V being greater than v given that n storms
occur, P(n, t) denotes the probability of n hurricanes occurring during the specified period of time t, n
is the number of cyclones occurring during specified time t, and t is the specified period of time.
Substituting Eq. (5) into Eq. (13) gives:
∞
(λt )n − λt
P(V > v, t ) = ∑ (1 − Fv )n e (14)
n=0 n!

Recognizing the summation in Eq. (14) is the series expansion of exponential function,
Eq. (14) becomes:

P(V > v, t ) = 1 − e− λt (1 − Fv ) (15)

This is an analytical expression of the cyclone hazard analysis (Chang and Lindell, 2005).
In order to obtain the wind speed in the region of interest using actual track data, the following
procedure is followed:
(i) All landfalling storm tracks based on hourly latitude/longitude information are mapped.
(ii) A circle of 250 km radius is circumscribed around centre of the site.

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214 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

(iii) Cyclone wind speeds at the centre of a site due to storm tracks passing through its circle are
calculated using wind field model (Eq. 12).
(iv) CDF of the cyclonic wind speed at site is calculated based on the wind speeds derived from the
wind field model.
(v) Annual mean occurrence rate of cyclones is calculated by dividing total storm tracks passing
through the circle by the total number of years.
(vi) Probability of exceedance (Hazard curve) can be estimated using Eq. (15).

3.1 Artificial Generation of Distribution of Velocity at a Site using the Published

Distribution of the Cyclone Key Parameters
The distribution of wind velocity at a particular site is obtained from the storm track data using a
methodology described in the previous section for Indian region. The distribution of wind velocity at
the site of interest is simulated using the distributions of the cyclone key parameters published in the
literature. The distributions of the key parameters include those of the central pressure difference (∆P),
translation speed (VT), radius of maximum wind (Rmax), heading of cyclone track (θ ), minimum
distance between the site of interest and cyclone centre, Dmin.
Once a site of interest has been selected, a circle of influence is circumscribed around the site. The
radius of simulation circle is set as 250 km (Georgiou et al., 1983). Several methods exist for locating
tropical cyclone paths with respect to any geographical point. Tracks are simulated as straight line paths
as shown in Figure 2, defined as θ by their approach angle (θ ), taken as clockwise positive from north,
and minimum distance of approach, Dmin. When a track passes to the left of a site of interest, Dmin is
taken as positive.
The first step of wind field simulation is to establish cyclone recurrence model for thesite of interest.
The homogeneous Poisson process has been accepted widely as an appropriate model to describe the
annual recurrence rate of cyclonic events as described earlier (Eq. 5). After establishing the validity of
recurrence model, the probability models of cyclone key parameters are obtained by analyzing the
historical cyclonic wind data obtained from the database. Potential probabilistic distributions for these
key parameters described from the historical analysis of historical data are shown in Table 2. These
parameters are then used to generate simulated cyclones using wind field simulation techniques.

Circle of Influence N

Region of Interest

Dmin

Figure 2. Spatial definition of tropical cyclone tracks (Georgiou et al., 1983)

International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta 215

Table 2. List of distributions of key cyclone parameters

Random Variables Key Cyclone Parameters

Distribution
λ Annual occurrence rate Poisson*
∆p Maximum difference between cyclone central and Lognormal
peripheral pressure Weibull*
Rmax The radius of maximum wind speed Lognormal*
Normal
VT Storm track speed Lognormal*
Normal
θ Heading of cyclone track Lognormal
Normal*
Bi-normal
Von-Mises
Dmin Minimum distance between the storm and site of interest Uniform*
Polynomial
Trapezoid

*Represents the distributions used for simulating the wind speed

A group of cyclone key parameters are generated randomly from the probability distributions. Using
these simulated values of the cyclone key parameters, different sets of values for all the cyclone key
parameters are generated. Each set represents a particular combination and gives a value of V10 at a site
using Eq. (12). Thus, a set of artificially generated cyclonic wind at the site is obtained and the CDF of
the data set calculated. With the help of an assumed value of λ for the Poisson model and the CDF, the
hazard curve for the site is determined.

3.2 Proposed Distribution of Cyclone Key Parameters for East Coast of Indian
Region
The statistical distribution of the key cyclone parameters are derived from actual data of central
pressure difference, translation velocity, radius of maximum wind, heading direction of all landfalling
tropical cyclones on Indian coastal region formed in Bay of Bengal. The latitude/longitude
information for each storm track is mapped and landfall locations are assigned as shown in
Figure 3. The key parameters are calculated using the methods as given in section 2.1-2.5. Since each
site individually has too few data for the cyclone key parameters, it is difficult to get any good
distribution from the data for each site. Therefore, data of the sites located in the eastern side, i.e.,
Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal are grouped together to get the distribution of
cyclone key parameters and the same distributions are assumed to hold good for all sites in the eastern
region. Standard statistical techniques are employed to determine the best fit distributions. In order to
validate this assumption, it is necessary to perform a sensitivity analysis of the distributions of wind
speed obtained for different sites of the states (Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal)
by using the simulated cyclone key parameters and compare them with those obtained by using actual
track records. Such a study is computationally intensive. However, taking one site near the middle of
each state, a sensitivity analysis is carried out and results are shown in Figure 4. It is seen from Figure
4 that deviation between the two distributions (actual track record and simulated) for a particular state
is insignificant and therefore, the assumption of using the same distributions of cyclone key
parameters for entire eastern region seems to be reasonably valid.

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216 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

Figure 3. Historical storm tracks in Bay of Bengal

1
Actaul Track Data (A.P.)
0.8 Using Indian Distributions (A.P.)
Actual Track Data (Orissa)
0.6
Using Indian Distributions (Orissa)
CDF

0.4 Acuual Track Data (W.B.)

Using Indian Distributions (W.B.)
0.2 Actaul Track Data (T.N.)
Using Indian Distributions (T.N.)
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 4. Comparison of CDFs between those obtained by simulated and actual track
record

International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta 217

4. NUMERICAL STUDY
The state of Andhra Pradesh is the most disaster prone state in the Indian Union. Therefore, a particular
site near the coastal regions of Andhra Pradesh is taken as the example problem for the numerical study.
The location of the site A is shown in Figure 5.

4.1 Proposed Distribution of Cyclone Key Parameters for Indian Coastal Region
The distributions of the cyclone key parameters are obtained from the track records for the site using
the method describe before. They are compared with the distributions of key cyclone parameters
reported in the literature (given in Table 2). The distributions are shown in Figures 6-9.
In Figure 6, the histograms obtained for the central pressure difference are shown. Two standard
distributions, namely Weibull and lognormal, are fitted to the histograms as shown in the same figure.
From the Chi-square and K-S tests, it was observed that lognormal distribution fits best to the
histograms. From Table 2, it is seen that one of the reported distributions in the literature is the
lognormal distribution (Batts et al., 1980).
In Figure 7, histograms of radius of maximum wind (RMW) are shown. Three distributions, namely
lognormal, normal, and logistic are fitted to the histograms and shown in the same figure. From the Chi-
square and K-S test, lognormal distribution is found to be the best fit for the radius of maximum wind.
Table 2 shows that the distribution as obtained from Indian data is the same as that observed elsewhere
(Georgiou et al., 1983; Vickery and Twisdale, 1995a; Huang et al., 2001).

Figure 5. Cyclone Tracks passing through the radius of influence

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218 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

0.06
Data
Longnormal Distribution
0.05
Weibulll Distribution

0.04
PDF

0.03

0.02

0.01

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
Central pressure Difference (hpa)

Figure 6. Probability density function of central pressure data

0.18
0.16 Data
Lognormal Distribution
0.14 Normal Distribution
0.12 Logistic Distribution

0.1
PDF

0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
24 26 28 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46
Radius of maximum wind (km)

Figure 7. Probability density function of radius of maximum wind

0.01
Data
0.008 Normal distribution

0.006
PDF

0.004

0.002

0
-200 -150 -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200
Heading Direction (degs)

Figure 8. Probability density function of storm heading data

International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta 219

0.2
Data
0.18 Weibull Distribution
0.16 Normal Distribution
Lognormal Distribution
0.14
0.12
PDF 0.1
0.08
0.06
0.04
0.02
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Translation wind speed (m/s)

Figure 9. Probability density function of forward motion

PDF of storm heading direction is shown in Figure 8. Normal distribution is found to be the best fit
from Chi-square and K-S tests. Table 2 shows that the distribution as obtained from Indian data is the
same as that observed elsewhere (Huang et al., 2001).
Histograms of translation velocity are shown in Figure 9. Three distributions, namely Weibull,
lognormal and normal are fitted to the histograms of translation wind velocity. A Weibull distribution
ranks first as the best fit for the translation speed. Lognormal distribution ranks second. It is seen from
Table 2 that the distribution of translation velocity (found elsewhere) is given as either lognormal/
normal. Thus, there is some variation in the distribution of the key parameter of translation velocity (for
Indian condition) compared to those in the literature. This kind of deviation is expected because
characteristics of the cyclonic wind speed are likely to vary from region to region and from country to
country. Distributions of other key parameters (for Indian condition) confirm to the distributions
reported in the literature.

4.2 Distributions of Wind Velocity

The distributions of wind velocity at the particular site is obtained from (i) actual track records
(procedure given in section 3), (ii) procedure outlined in section 3.1 using the distributions of the key
parameters given in Table 2, and (iii) procedure given in section 3.1 using the distributions of key
parameters for Indian region as shown in section 4.1. Note that in (ii) and (iii), the wind velocities are
artificially generated. They are not the actual measured wind velocities. For generating the wind
velocities for the case (ii), the distributions with asteric mark in Table 2 are used, while for the case
(iii), the distributions as observed in section 4.1 are used. For both the cases, the mean and standard
deviation of the key parameters like, ∆p, VT, etc. required for generating the data for a particular site
are obtained from the track record data are shown in Table 3. The distribution obtained for the case (iii)
is termed as Indian distribution.
Figure 10 compares the distributions of wind velocity at the site obtained from the three cases. It is
seen from the figure that the Indian distribution is very close to that obtained directly from the track
records. This validates both the simulation procedure and distributions for cyclone key parameter for
Indian region. Further, it is seen from Figure 10 that the results of simulation procedure using the
distribution of key parameters published in the literature also compare well with the other two
distributions. This shows that distributions of cyclone key parameters given in the literature are
applicable in general and, therefore, can be used for places where enough statistical data are not
available. The hazard curves for the site obtained using the three distributions are compared in Figure
11. It is seen from the figure that three hazard curves also compare very well. In order to examine the
applicability of the above validation over the entire spatial domain considered in the study, three more

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220 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

Table 3: Statistical distributions and distribution parameters

Parameter Mean COV Distribution Distribution Parameters

Annual occurrence 0.625 Poisson* λ = 0.625
rate, λ
Heading angle, –28.154 –1.756 Normal* µ = –28.154 σ = 49.451
θ (degrees)
Central pressure 25.49 0.650 Lognormal* µ = 3.0621 σ = .5936
difference, Weibull a = 28.38 b = 1.572
∆p(hPa)
Radius of maximum 34.91 0.1753 Lognormal* µ = 3.5376 σ = 0.174
winds, Rmax (km)
Translation velocity, 4.172 0.46 Weibull* a = 4.7092 b = 2.304
VT (m/s) Lognormal µ = 1.3324 σ = 0.438
Dmin (km) Uniform* a = 0.002; –R ≤ x ≤ R

* Represents the distributions of cyclonic key parameters for Indian region

0.8

0.6
CDF

0.4
Actual Track Data
0.2 Using Indian Distributions
Using Distributions from Literature
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 10. Comparison of CDF of the cyclonic wind speed (site A; Figure 5)

0.5
Annual Probability of Exceedance

Actual Track Data

0.4 Using Indian Distributions
Using Distributions from Literature
0.3

0.2

0.1

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 11. Comparison of annual probability of exceedance of the cyclonic wind speed
(site A; Figure 5)

International Journal of Ocean and Climate Systems

Pradeep K. Goyal, T.K. Datta 221

sites B, C, D as shown in Figure 4 are selected. Distributions of wind speed obtained from the actual
track data and simulation procedure for these three sites also compared well as shown in Figures 12-
14.

0.8

0.6
CD F

0.4
Actual Track Data
0.2 Using Indian Distributions
Using Distributions from Literature
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 12. Comparison of CDF of the cyclonic wind speed (site B; Figure 5)

0.8

0.6
CDF

0.4
Actual Track Data
Using Indian Distributions
0.2
Using Distributions from Literature
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 13. Comparison of CDF of the cyclonic wind speed (site C; Figure 5)

0.8

0.6
CD F

0.4
Actual Track Data

0.2 Using Indian Distribution

Using Distributions from Literature
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Wind Speed (m/s)

Figure 14. Comparison of CDF of the cyclonic wind speed (site D; Figure 5)

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222 Probability Distributions for Cyclone Key Parameters and
Cyclonic Wind Speed for the East Coast of Indian Region

5. CONCLUSIONS
A method for obtaining the distribution of cyclonic wind speed for a region of interest using cyclone
track record data is presented. Further, the distributions of cyclone key parameters for the Indian coastal
region are also obtained from the track records and are compared with those available in the literature.
For selected sites, cyclonic wind speed distribution and the hazard curves are obtained directly from the
track records and are compared with those obtained from the simulation procedure. Results of the study
lead to the following conclusions:
(i) The distributions of Indian cyclone key parameters namely, central pressure difference, radius of
maximum wind speed and storm heading direction are the same as reported in literature. Only the
key parameter, translation velocity has marginally different distribution than that reported in the
literature.
(ii) The distribution of the wind speed and the hazard curve obtained from simulation procedure
compare extremely well with those obtain directly from track records.
(iii) The distributions of the cyclone key parameters as given in the literature can be used for
simulating cyclone wind speeds in areas where enough track record data is not available.

6. REFERENCES
Batts, M.E., Russell, L.R. and Simiu, E. (1980). “Hurricane Wind Speeds in the United States.” Journal
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Volume 2 · Number 3 · 2011