1981–82 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season
cyclone season in the South-West Indian ocean
The 1981–82 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season was a destructive and deadly cyclone season that occurred in areas near or in Madagascar, where four cyclones killed 100 people and caused $250 million (USD) in damage overall. The season was fairly active, lasting from October to May. There were nine named storms that attained gale-force winds, or at least 65 km/h (40 mph). Five of the storms attained tropical cyclone status, which have 10-minute sustained winds of at least 120 km/h (75 mph).
The first storm was Tropical Cyclone Alex, which was named by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). this was due to the boundary of the basin at the time, which incorporated the Indian Ocean south of the equator and extended from the east coast of Africa to 80° E; the eastern extent was later moved to 90° E. Two other storms – Armelle and Damia – also originated in the Australian basin. The latter was the strongest cyclone on record in the basin at the time by barometric pressure, estimated at 898 mbar (26.52 inHg). The first storm to affect Madagascar was Benedicte in December, and was followed by tropical storms Frida and Electre in February and Justine in March. The final storm of the season was Cyclone Karla, which remained in the eastern periphery of the basin while reaching winds of 170 km/h (105 mph).
Season summary
Météo-France's meteorological office at Réunion (MFR) issued advisories for storms in the basin during the year.
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This entry incorporates text from “1981–82 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.