Tropical cyclone ‘Indlala” is evolving around latitude 13.0 degrees south and longitude 54.2 degrees east some 900 kilometres to the north-north-west of Mauritius. That was the position at 16.00 hours local time (12.00 UT) as located by the Mauritius Meteorological Services. It is moving in a westerly direction at about 12 kilometres per hour and is not expected to hit Mauritius. It will most probably touch the northern tip of Madagascar in the coming days.
This is the ninth cyclone formation in the region during the present cyclone season extending from 01 November to 15 May. The previous one, “Gamede”, passed about 200 kiometres off the north-west coast of Mauritius in the early hours of Sunday 25 February 2007. It brought along significant amount of rainfall enough to fill all the reservoirs which were less than 50% of their capacity. More than 150 kilometres per hour of wind gusts were recorded at places.
The 2006-2007 seasonal outlook of the Mauritius Meteorological Services seems to be on target. 10 storms were forecast in the region with at least one passing in the vicinity.
Mauritian residing in Rodrigues, Amanoola Khayrattee (pen name Alfa King) is contributing writer and journalist to La Gazette Mag de l’océan indien and This Week News Mauritius.
Retired, former meteorological cadre, trade unionist and OSH consultant, Amanoola has written for in-house union and other journals, publications and magazines. He runs two blogs since 2007: “Alfa King Memories”, and “Le Journal d’Alfa King”. When he is not reading or writing, he is on a 10+ km daily hike in anticipation of his monthly trails.
Amanoola may be reached at [email protected].