Feature article
Tropical cyclone update
By Jim Salinger, Jim Renwick, Stuart Burgess, and Ashmita Gosai, NIWA
'Yolanda' developed over southern Tuvalu on 1 December, and then tracked south, passing east of Fiji on the 4th, and then southeast over southern Tonga on the 5th. Maximum sustained winds reached 74 km/h, with heavy rainfall. Fortunately no damage was caused by this event. 'Zoe' formed on 24th December from a tropical depression near Tuvalu and Fiji’s Rotuma Island, intensifying to tropical cyclone intensity as it tracked west on the 26th.