Watch – Tropical cyclone Enawo forecast to strengthen and strike Madagascar Tuesday

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Watch – Tropical cyclone Enawo forecast to strengthen and strike Madagascar Tuesday

2:43 CAT | 06 Mar 2017

Al Jazeera / A major storm expected to be the strongest system to make landfall at the island nation in three years.

Tropical Cyclone Enawo is forecast to strengthen in the southern Indian Ocean before threatening Madagascar with its strongest tropical cyclone landfall on Tuesday.

Currently the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane, Enawo is around 400 miles east of the northeast coast of Madagascar.

Enawo is moving into a favorable environment featuring:

Low wind shear, or little change in wind direction and speed with height that allows thunderstorms to remain tightly clustered near the center of circulation.
Warm sea-surface temperatures, providing heat and low-level moisture to power the cyclone’s thunderstorms.
Winds spreading apart near the tops of thunderstorms, helping the low-pressure center to intensify.

This may allow Enawo to strengthen to the equivalent of a major hurricane with winds over 111 mph by sometime on Monday.

A strengthening area of high pressure aloft to the southeast of Enawo should steer this intensifying tropical cyclone toward the northeast coast of Madagascar by Tuesday.

Storm-surge flooding, damaging winds and dangerous surf are threats near and along the northeast coast of Madagascar starting Tuesday. Downed trees, structural damage to homes and power outages may be widespread in these areas.

Enawo will also bring heavy rainfall to this mountainous island. Much of the east coast will likely see in excess of 6 inches of rain. Mountainous locations, especially east- and northeast-facing slopes, may pick up well over a foot of total rain.

This could trigger life-threatening flash flooding and mud/rockslides. This flash flood threat could extend south into the capital of Antananarivo (population estimated around 1.4 million), and could linger into much of the week ahead, particularly if Enawo slows down as it curls southward over the island.

Remember, rainfall potential of a tropical cyclone is largely a function of its forward speed, not its intensity.

According to Dr. Phil Klotzbach, activity in February in the Indian Ocean was at its third-lowest level on record. February is typically a peak month for hurricane-strength systems in that basin.

So far, the southwestern Indian Ocean has seen six cyclones that reached tropical depression organization and two hurricane-strength systems.

The southwestern Indian Ocean typically sees about 9 to 10 tropical cyclones each year, while 4 to 5 of these become hurricane-strength systems.

The last tropical cyclone of at least hurricane strength to landfall in Madagascar was Hellen on Mar. 31, 2014.

Only two hurricane-strength tropical cyclones have made landfall on Madagascar’s east coast this decade: Giovanna on Feb. 13, 2012, and Bingiza on Feb. 14, 2011, according to NOAA’s Best Track database.