A cyclonic storm like Tropical Cyclone Gonu might not seem an odd sight until you consider that Gonu occurred in the Gulf of Oman and made landfall in Iran, a nation not known for cyclones. The most recent storm of Gonu’s magnitude hit the neighboring Sultanate of Oman was in 1977, according to the news service AlJazerra.net (English language).Given the rarity of these storms in the area, many shore facilities were never constructed to deal with the severe winds, strong rains, and high storm surge.

At 12:55 p.m. local time (09:55 UTC) on June 7, 2007, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image, Tropical Cyclone Gonu was crossing the Gulf of Oman and heading northward towards the Iranian coast. By this time, the powerful storm had lost considerable power and was considered a mere powerful tropical storm. Sustained winds were measured at 60 kilometers per hour (40 miles per hour) according to the University of Hawaii’s Tropical Storm Information Center.