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Al Jazeera / TC Dineo heads towards Mozambique it is then expected to bring floods to South Africa’s Kruger National Park. The fifth Cyclone of the Southern Hemisphere cyclone season threatens flooding in Mozambique and South Africa.
A tropical storm heading for the coast of southern Mozambique is expected to develop into a cyclone with winds of up to 118 to 165 kms (70 to 100 miles) per hour, the South African Weather Service said on Tuesday.
Mozambique, one of the world’s poorest countries which is in the throes of a debt and financial crisis, is prone to flooding and is especially vulnerable after a scorching drought last year, as soils degraded or hardened by dry spells do not easily absorb water.
Heavy rains could also impact subsistence maize farmers at a time when Mozambique is one of several countries in the region battling an infestation of crop-damaging fall armyworms, an invasive species with a taste for corn.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization on Tuesday began a three-day emergency meeting in Harare regarding the armyworm invasion, which has threatened crops in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa.
The South African Weather Service said that Tropical Storm Dineo would likely reach the cyclone stage early on Wednesday before making landfall around midnight near Inhambane, a popular diving and fishing resort town in southern Mozambique.
Rains from the tropical system would move into South Africa’s lowveld on Thursday, affecting sugar-growing areas and the Kruger National Park, before moving westwards on Friday.
Dineo bears down on Madagascar
Tropical Cyclone Dineo has formed in the Mozambique Channel, the fifth cyclone of the 2016/17 Southern Hemisphere cyclone season.
Dineo is now forecast to strengthen quickly over the next 36 hours before making landfall over southern Mozambique on Thursday. The storm is then expected to bring flooding rains into the northeast of South Africa by the weekend.
Tropical Cyclone Dineo is currently located 130km to the west of Europa Island. Sustained winds are around 100 gusting to 130km per hour.
Weather conditions in the channel are a perfect breeding ground for the storm to intensify. Sea surface temperatures off the west coast of Madagascar are just over 30C. This is where we have the bulk of the thunderstorms.
That temperature is well in excess of the 27C required for tropical systems to develop and grow. Indeed, Dineo is expected to peak with winds around 120 gusting 150km/h on Wednesday.
That would make it equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale for Atlantic hurricanes. Although it will not be a particularly powerful storm, there is likely to be some wind damage.
There is rather more certainty that the rains will be heavy enough to cause widespread flooding. Current projections take the cyclone towards Inhambane in southern Mozambique late on Wednesday before spreading torrential downpours into South Africa’s Kruger National Park two days later.
The storm is likely to have dissipated by the time it does reach South Africa. However, it will take much longer for the flooding rains within the warm, moist air to clear away.
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