Cyclone Freddy – a storm lashing Mozambique for a second time – is solidifying its status as the most relentless tropical cyclone ever observed.
and had winds of about 88 km/h. The storm crossed the coast on Saturday as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane before gradually losing strength over land.
The storm was blamed for 27 deaths in Madagascar and Mozambique when it lashed the two countries last month. Amid its second landfall in Mozambique this weekend, at least one person has died, Reuters reports, but the full scope of the cyclone’s toll is still unknown because “communications and electricity supply in the storm area have been cut”.Freddy attained Category 5 strength twice over the southern Indian Ocean in mid-February, and has been named for 34 days.
In addition, Freddy has rapidly intensified an unprecedented seven times, compared with the previous record, which was four times. Rapid intensification describes a jump of 56km/h or greater in a storm’s winds in 24 hours or less. While most major hurricanes and storms do rapidly intensify at least once, anything more than three times in a storm’s life cycle is exceptional.
The tropical cyclone caused widespread damage in Madagascar and dumped “dangerous and exceptional rainfall levels” on Mozambique.As of Saturday evening, Freddy had tallied somewhere in the neighbourhood of 86 ACE units, surpassing the record of 85.26 set by hurricane and typhoon Ioke in August to September 2006. That’s more ACE than 100 of the past 172 Atlantic hurricane seasons – not individual storms, but entire seasons’ worth of ACE.
While Freddy has broken records for rapid intensification, longevity and energy dispersed, it hasn’t spent its whole life at hurricane strength. It weakened to a tropical storm after landfall in Madagascar on February 21 and a depression following its first landfall in Mozambique days later.It’s likely that Freddy will finally dissipate by late Monday or early Tuesday as it unloads its heavy rain in northern and central Mozambique. Some places could see roughly 63 centimetres.
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