Prayers for Bangladesh….

These days certainly are way too much like the 70s. Let’s have more than a concert for them this time.

Wunder Blog : Weather Underground

Tropical Cyclone Sidr made landfall at 1430 GMT in western Bangladesh as a mighty Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds. Sidr is the second strongest cyclone to make landfall in Bangladesh since reliable record keeping began in 1877. The only stronger storm was the 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone, which struck eastern Bangladesh as a Category 5 cyclone. The 30 foot storm surge of that storm killed at least 140,000 people. Sidr is the Arabic word for the the jujube tree.

More from Chris Mooney at The Intersection:

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center finally gave in and rated the storm at 135 knots–or 155 mile per hour winds. This is the cutoff for Category 5. There may be some weakening by landfall, but what we’re expecting is a borderline Cat 4/Cat 5 striking along the path shown above. You’ve gotta figure the storm surge is going to be more than 20 feet. There are supposed to be vertical evacuations in Bangladesh, but I just don’t know what’s happening on the ground….

And from CNN:

Hundreds of thousands of coastal villagers sought shelter inland Thursday as a tropical cyclone — accompanied by strong winds, heavy rainfall and high waves — started battering Bangladesh’s southwestern shores, officials said.

Residents of Barisal, Bangladesh, shelter against the rain Thursday as Tropical Cyclone Sidr approaches.

Tropical Cyclone Sidr was centered nearly 93 miles (150 kilometers) south of Mongla port at 6 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET) in the Bay of Bengal off the Khulna-Barisal coast, said Shahjahan Alam at the Meteorological Department in the capital, Dhaka.

Sustaining winds up to 149 mph (240 kilometers per hour), the storm was likely to make landfall late Thursday near the Sundarbans mangrove forests in Khulna district, 85 miles (136 kilometers) southwest of Dhaka, Alam added. He warned of flooding from possible storm surges as high as 20 feet (6 meters).

Volunteers helped evacuate thousands of people Wednesday from the coast and the government warned ships to seek shelter as the cyclone roared offshore.

And from the BBC, here’s hope that they were way more prepared for this one:

But Mr Karmakar added that most of the five million people living in the area should already have been evacuated or have taken cover in cyclone shelters or government buildings.

Operations have been suspended at the main ports of Mongla and Chittagong.

The southern seaside resort town of Cox’s Bazar appeared to be deserted after the cyclone warning was issued on Wednesday evening, reports said.

Southern Bangladesh is often hit by cyclones, but experts say the latest one is a category four storm, the most powerful so far in the season.

Bangladesh developed a network of cyclone shelters and a storm early warning system, after a cyclone killed more than 500,000 people in 1970.

Casualties from cyclones has been significantly reduced as a result, officials say.