Six cyclones are spinning through the tropics right now, churning over the ocean and sometimes over land in both hemispheres. Most are bringing serious impacts to populated areas, and one has set a record.
The strongest of the group is Tropical Cyclone Lola, which lurched to Category 5 status on Australia’s cyclone scale Monday evening as it brought rough weather to Vanuatu, about 2,000 miles to Australia’s east. It’s the earliest storm this strong on record in the southwest Pacific, fitting into a trend of high-end storms forming earlier in storm seasons as oceans warm.
In Africa, Tropical Cyclone Tej is bringing disastrous flooding in Yemen after sweeping inland from the Arabian Sea. On the opposite end of the Indian Ocean, Tropical Cyclone Hamoon is sweeping ashore from the Bay of Bengal and unloading heavy rains over Bangladesh.
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Heading east, Tropical Storm Otis is about to hit Mexico’s west coast from the northeast Pacific, while Hurricane Tammy is headed for Bermuda in the northwest Atlantic. That’s not to mention another sneaky tropical swirl — called Tropical Depression 21 — bringing downpours to Nicaragua and Honduras.
Cyclones occupy every ocean basin except the northwest Pacific and southern Indian oceans, all of them fueled by warm ocean waters. Although these storms are called different things in different parts of the world and vary in strength, they share similar characteristics and form from the same processes.
While the storms are being fueled by abnormally warm waters, it’s not terribly unusual for most of them to develop at this time of year. In the northwest Atlantic and northeast Pacific ocean basins, where we find Tammy, Otis and Tropical Depression 21, hurricane season technically runs until Nov. 30. In the north Indian Ocean, home to Tej and Hamoon, most storms form between May and November, too.
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Lola is the most unusual and out-of-place storm of the bunch. In the southwest Pacific, tropical cyclone season doesn’t even officially begin until Nov. 1. Not only did Lola form ahead of time, but its peak winds of 145 mph Monday night qualified it as the strongest storm ever observed in the Southern Hemisphere so early in the season.
Lola
On Tuesday morning Eastern time, Lola was still the equivalent of a major hurricane. It had winds of 125 mph and was about 145 miles north of Port Vila, Vanuatu. It was still hitting the highly populous northern cluster of islands in the archipelago.
Fortunately, Lola was weakening. Despite constant thunderstorm flare-ups, it did not appear that Lola had maintained an eye — or calm center, which is present in the most intense storms. Rapid weakening is expected over the next 48 hours, and Lola should hardly be a tropical storm by the time it reaches New Caledonia.
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A recent paper published in Nature found that intense southern hemisphere tropical cyclones are forming about two weeks earlier in the season than they did before 1980. Experts fully attribute the trend to human-caused climate change, which is allowing ocean waters to warm and become supportive of hurricanes earlier. Having broken a long-standing record, Lola is the poster storm for that.
Tej
In the Indian Ocean, Tej made landfall in extreme northeast Yemen late Monday. It peaked at the equivalent strength of a high-end Category 2 or low-end Category 3 hurricane Sunday as it passed just north of Socotra Island. Now it’s unloading all of its moisture over Yemen while disintegrating.
Nearly 16 inches of rain had fallen at Yemen’s Al-Ghaydah Airport as of 9 a.m. Tuesday. According to Jonathan Erdman, a meteorologist for the Weather Co., that’s about eight years’ worth of rainfall, considering Al-Ghaydah averages barely 2 inches annually.
As feared, staggering rainfall totals have come out of eastern Yemen and western Oman from Cyclone #Tej.
Per Yemen Met Services, 406 mm (15.98 inches) of rain has fallen at Al-Ghaydah Airport as of 9am Tuesday, ~8 times *annual* average, there.
📷: Yemen Met Services pic.twitter.com/4aScZ3c4W9
— Jonathan Erdman (@wxjerdman) October 24, 2023Hamoon
In a rare twist, Tej had company in the Indian Ocean. Hamoon formed Monday in the Bay of Bengal, and now has 85 mph Category 1 hurricane-equivalent winds as it nears landfall just south of Chattogram in Bangladesh.
Up to 10 inches of rain is possible as the storm comes ashore.
Otis
Hurricane warnings have been hoisted for the southern coast of Mexico between Punta Maldonado and Zihuatanejo in advance of Tropical Storm Otis, which will probably strengthen into a hurricane Tuesday night or early Wednesday. As of Tuesday morning, it had 70 mph winds — just 4 mph shy of hurricane strength — and was 155 miles south-southeast of Acapulco. The storm was moving north-northwest at 8 mph. Since its motion is largely parallel to the coastline, it makes predicting the landfall location more difficult.
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Otis formed over the weekend as a result of winds channeled through the “Tehauntepec Gap,” or an opening between two mountain ranges in the slender part of Mexico that’s oriented west to east. That allowed some of the winds to curl into an eddy of vorticity, or counterclockwise spin, which was enough to cook up a storm.
Landfall is expected Wednesday and rainfall totals of 5 to 10 inches are expected near the coast, with isolated totals up to 15 inches. The National Hurricane Center is also warning of a “dangerous” storm surge and “life-threatening rip currents.”
It will become the fourth tropical storm or hurricane to strike Mexico’s west coast this month.
Tammy
Hurricane Tammy continues to churn through the open Atlantic north of Puerto Rico. It breezed mainly east of the northern Leeward Islands over the weekend before a last-minute left turn that took it directly over Barbuda.
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It was clinging to hurricane strength, barely meeting the 74 mph threshold required. It’s moving northeast at present, but will be tugged westward by a cutoff low, or a pocket of high-altitude cold air, low pressure and spin detached from the jet stream.
Assuming that left turn does ensue, it will probably hit Bermuda as a tropical or post-tropical storm over the weekend.
Tropical Depression 21 over Nicaragua
A tropical depression — often the precursor to a tropical storm — formed near the southern coast of Nicaragua on Monday evening before quickly sweeping inland. The depression has begun to dissipate, but the National Hurricane Center warned that it would probably produce heavy rainfall across portions of both Nicaragua and Honduras, producing flash and urban flooding, as well as possible mudslides into Wednesday.
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