A cyclone that powered up over unusually warm ocean waters hit part of India’s coastline that’s dense with billions of dollars of investment in data centres, underscoring the threats to infrastructure as extreme weather becomes more frequent.

Cyclone Arnab battered parts of eastern Andhra Pradesh state Wednesday, killing three people, damaging homes and infrastructure and inundating roughly 200,000 acres of cropland, according to state authorities. Heavy rainfall was the biggest threat inland as the storm weakened.

Meteorologists said unusually high temperatures across the Bay of Bengal helped fuel Arnab.

Its arrival on a coastline where billions of dollars are being invested in data centres at early stages of construction underscored how extreme weather threatens both existing livelihoods and the infrastructure intended to drive future growth, climate experts said. It will likely take days or weeks for full damage estimates to be calculated.

Warmer seas and a faltering monsoon

Unusually high temperatures across the Bay of Bengal, an already warm atmosphere and heat stored below the surface helped fuel Arnab, according to K.J. Ramesh, a former director general of the Indian Meteorological Department.

“A warmer atmosphere can also hold more moisture, increasing the potential for intense rainfall,” he said.

The unusually warm waters also helped the storm strengthen rapidly, according to Akshay Deoras, a weather expert at the University of Reading in the........

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