Late evening on Wednesday, the cyclone ‘Laila’ was forecasted to hit Andhra Pradesh coast in a devastating manner. But then, overnight, the storm lost its intensity and caused less damage to property and life as it was not expected to.

A senior meteorologist from the local town, has stated that it might be the reason that Laila was moving too close to the land for a very long time; this may be the reason it lost steam to charge the coast of Andhra Pradesh.

Cyclones get their energy from the sea, by the process of evaporation of sea water into the atmosphere. As long it stays on the sea, it keeps charging, but then Laila was just too close to the land and the much needed water was not sufficiently available to keep the storm going. As the cyclone moved very fast towards the land and covered a very short span of distance – since it was moving parallel to the coast- it seems it lost the supply of moisture, which led to weaken the system.

The cyclone has claimed 14 lives and is reportedly heading towards Orissa.