Tropical Cyclone Freddy, second in cumulative energy since 1980

March 9 () –

Tropical Cyclone Freddy, the longest-lived on record, already ranks second in terms of accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) generated by a single storm since 1980.

Only Ioke, a 2006 hurricane in the central Pacific, holds the record with an ACE -a metric that includes duration and intensity- out of 85, according to atmospheric scientist Philip Klotzbach of Colorado State University, cited by NASA Earth Observatory.

According to the World Meteorological Organization, Freddy has become the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record for 32 days. The previous record holder, Hurricane John, lasted 31 days in the Central Pacific in 1994.

For more than a month, Freddy has been wandering the Indian Ocean, causing strong winds and downpours along its long and wandering path.

The storm first developed off the coast of northern Australia on February 6, 2023, and then traveled the entire Indian Ocean before hitting the east coast of Madagascar on February 21, 2023.. It then crossed the Mozambique Channel and made landfall in the Mozambican province of Inhambane near Vilankulo, where it stopped and dropped a huge amount of rain before turning around and nearly hitting the west coast of Madagascar again. On March 8, 2023, the storm, which was weakening, was following a northwesterly track towards a probable second landfall in Mozambique, this time in the province of Zambezia.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the NOAA-20 satellite acquired the above image of the storm at 1110 UTC on 8 March 2023. An infusion of dry air and the storm’s position over relatively cold water meant that Freddy was getting weak and the eye had been broken when the image was acquired.

However, meteorologists from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center warned that Freddy would likely continue to lash Mozambique with sustained winds of 139 km/h, which is equivalent to a category 1 hurricane.