Cyclone Freddy traveled nearly 5,000 miles across the southern Indian Ocean – one of the longest tropical cyclone tracks on record in that ocean basin – and will soon conclude its unusual two-plus-week journey as it makes a rare landfall in southern Africa.
While these types of storms are called tropical storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific oceans, they are called cyclones in the Indian Ocean.
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Earlier this week, Cyclone Freddy made its first landfall near Mananjary on the eastern coast of Madagascar late Tuesday morning (U.S. time). A forecast advisory issued by the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) about an hour before Freddy moved onshore indicated the tropical cyclone had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
According to the Associated Press, Cyclone Freddy has been blamed for the deaths of four people in Madagascar. Freddy’s torrential rain and powerful winds pummeled portions of the island nation, where nearly 5,000 homes were damaged and more than 16,000 people were left displaced, the AP reported.
Cyclone Freddy had weakened to the equivalent of a tropical storm as of Thursday (U.S. time), according to the JTWC. The storm previously peaked at Category 5-equivalent intensity last weekend as it tracked across the southern Indian Ocean.
NOAA’s historical hurricane tracks database indicated that Freddy was only the 20th tropical cyclone to reach Category 5 status in the South Indian Ocean since 1989. That’s an average of approximately one Category 5 cyclone every two years in that ocean basin.
Cyclone Freddy now has its sights set on southern Africa, where it will pose a dangerous flood threat in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and northeastern South Africa.
After moving across the island of Madagascar, Freddy emerged over the Mozambique Channel and continued to move westward toward Mozambique on Thursday.
Cyclone Freddy is forecast to make its second landfall in Mozambique late Thursday or early Friday (U.S. time) with at least tropical storm-equivalent strength, but it’s possible that it could strengthen to a Category 1-equivalent cyclone before reaching land.
This scenario would be a rarity because less than 5% of southern Indian Ocean tropical cyclones make landfall on the eastern coast of southern Africa, according to a study published in the journal Weather and Forecasting in October 2004.
Torrential rain will result in the potential for dangerous flash flooding and landslides in portions of southern Africa – including Mozambique, Zimbabwe and northeastern South Africa – especially in areas with hilly or mountainous terrain.
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The origins of Cyclone Freddy go back over two weeks to Feb. 6, when it developed off the coast of southern Indonesia. Since then, it has traveled across the entire southern Indian Ocean – a journey of nearly 5,000 miles.
According to NOAA’s historical hurricane tracks database, there has only been one other Category 1-equivalent or stronger tropical cyclone in the southern Indian Ocean to make the entire journey from near Indonesia all the way to Madagascar: Cyclone Eline/Leone in February 2000.
In terms of Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE – an integrated metric that accounts for the frequency, intensity and duration of tropical cyclones – Freddy is now the all-time record holder for the Southern Hemisphere.
According to Phil Klotzbach, a tropical weather expert at Colorado State University, Freddy surpassed the ACE of Cyclone Fantala in 2016, the previous Southern Hemisphere record holder.
Additionally, Cyclone Freddy generated the most ACE of any tropical cyclone on Earth since Hurricane/Typhoon Ioke in 2006, which was a long-lived and intense storm that tracked across the Central and Western Pacific Ocean, peaking at Category 5 intensity during its 17-day journey.
Freddy’s ACE even surpassed that of Hurricane Irma in 2017, Klotzbach noted.
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The only two Atlantic hurricanes with a higher lifetime ACE than Cyclone Freddy were Hurricane Three in 1899 and Hurricane Ivan in 2004.