Tropical Cyclone Durga

[Somerset Squall]

Another tropical cyclone has formed in this very active season (which should be coming to a close soon). 29S is forecasted to roughly follow the same path as Rosie, perhaps a little farther west so Christmas Island shouldn't be at too much risk but things may change. 29S is looking pretty good at the moment with some banding and deep convection over the centre. Only modest strengthening is forecast by the JTWC as 29S has about 24 hours of favourable conditions (good outflow, sufficient sea temps) before the system runs into the shear that Rosie is currently battling with. Interesting that we have two late April storms in the South Indian Ocean, it's not rare but it's not all that common either.

Satellite image of 29S (on the right side, Rosie to the right, 29S to the left):

Taken from CIMSS

[Cookie]

ok you're very good at this, this storm wasn't even on the wounderground 5 mins ago :lol:

[Somerset Squall]

LOL- I've been watching it develop today, and you could see it was going to be upgraded this evening and indeed the JTWC did upgrade it. I wonder where this season ranks in terms of activity. Because of the lack of long term data we will probably never know for certain.

[Cookie]

why is their such a lack of data?

[Somerset Squall]

I don't know for sure but lack of satellite imagery in this part of the world over the last couple of decades was probably a big problem. Many storms probably went undetected which of course makes the data unreliable. It's the same with the Atlantic basin, once you go back beyond the 1960's then less storms were being detected, particularly the ones out to sea because satellite imagery was only just starting to be used. I would imagine that technologies such as this would have been later coming to the Southern Hemisphere meaning we can't reliably go back as far as we can in the Atlantic. 1990's is probably the farthest we can go back fairly reliably in the Indian Ocean. That's my guess anyway :lol: . Anyone know for certain any other reasons?

[Cookie]

thanks mate for that :lol:

[Somerset Squall]

Tropical Cylclone 29S has been upgraded to Tropical Cyclone Durga, a name given by Jakarta as it's in their area of responsibility. Current intensity is 40kts, but Durga could already be weakening. Banding was very good earlier but already it's beginiing to weaken, and further weakening is forecast due to increasing shear (much like with Rosie). Durga is moving eastwards in response to the equatorial ridge to the north and is forecasted to move southwards later on due to a subtropical steering ridge building to the east. Durga is expected to dissipate by 36hrs as conditions are really hostile in the area, if it wasn't for the shear then Durga and Rosie could have become pretty strong as other conditions such as sea temps, outflow etc are fairly good.

Image of Durga:

[Cookie]

thanks for the updates mate

[Somerset Squall]

Durga has weakened to 35kts and is still battling strong shear. Most of the convection is being sheared south of the centre. However, Durga is not expected to dissipate for another 24hrs yet as the cyclone is currently situated over warm water and has a fair poleward outflow channel. However, shear will eventually win out and Durga will go the same way as Rosie. It's worth noting though that Durga is located nearby to the northeast of Cocos Island, and as shear is blasting convection to the southwest then the islands could experience some heavy showers today but nothing life threatening.

[Somerset Squall]

Durga has dissipated earlier than expected. The shear was too strong and overcame the other favourable factors. The sheared convection has completely dissipated and the LLC is entirley exposed. As shear is expected to become even stronger Durga has no chance of regeneration.

[Cookie]

Another one bites the dust!