Cyclone Gombe will hit Mozambique on Friday – AIM

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Cyclone Gombe will hit Mozambique on Friday – AIM

7:20 CAT | 11 Mar 2022

Image: Twiter /@jayhobgoo

Tropical cyclone Gombe is on course to hit the northern Mozambican coast on Friday, according to the US navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC).

The cyclone crossed Madagascar and entered the Mozambique Channel on Tuesday. By Thursday, it was about half way between Madagascar and Mozambique. Its current windspeed is 80 knots (about 150 kilometres an hour), and is expected to reach 100 knots on Friday.

The cyclone is travelling almost due west. On its current course, it will make landfall on the coast of the northern province of Nampula, somewhere between Nacala and Angoche.

Tropical Cyclone #Gombe is producing significant wave heights around 8 meters or about 26 feet near the northern coast of #Mozambique. The 10-minute sustained winds are 139 km/h (86 mph) according to Meteo-France La Reunion. pic.twitter.com/bIlmjOunWQ

— Jason Nicholls (@jnmet) March 11, 2022

Speaking on Wednesday, at a meeting of the government’s Technical Disaster Risk Management Council, Acacio Tembe, the head of the analysis and forecasting department of the National Meteorology Institute (INAM), said that Gomba could affect over 580,000 people.

Tembe noted that the storm system had lost strength as it crossed Madagascar, but was revived by the warm waters of the Mozambique Channel. The surface water temperatures were 30 degrees Celsius, providing the conditions for the cyclone to intensify.

There are various ways of measuring storms. INAM on Wednesday was classifying Gombe as “a moderate tropical storm”, but the JTWC had no doubt that it was already a cyclone.

Tembe feared that when it hit the Nampula coast, Gombe would bring winds of 160 kilometres an hour, with gusts of 180 kilometres an hour.

INAM is forecasting torrential rain in Nampula and the neighbouring province of Zambezia, with rainfall of between 150 and 250 millimetres in 24 hours. Heavy rains could also be expected in Cabo Delgado, Niassa, Tete and Sofala provinces, and in the neighbouring countries of Malawi and Zambia.

The head of the Disaster Risk Management Institute (INGD), Luisa Meque, told the meeting “there is very little time” to warn people in the path of the storm to move away from flood prone areas.

As a preventive measure, the National Emergency Operational Centre (CENOE) has positioned food aid and other essential relief goods, including 18 boats and seven mobile bridges, at strategic points in Nampula and Zambezia.

CENOE has identified and mapped 1,746 places that can be used for temporary shelter in Nampula, and 421 in Zambézia.

Tropical Cyclone Gombe rapidly intensified to equivalent of a major hurricane just before making landfall near Mogincual, Mozambique; max wind 115 mph (185 km/h); moving toward west at 8 mph (13 km/h). pic.twitter.com/wHyC79PzGJ

— Jay Hobgood (@jayhobgood) March 11, 2022