Changes in the Tropical Cyclone

New Information on the Tropical Cyclone which we found just now on iafrica.com SA news.

Cyclone Irina now 'moderate'

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 7:03

Tropical cyclone Irina, which was expected to hit the northern coast of KwaZulu-Natal this weekend, will not be as extreme

as initially predicted, the SA Weather Service said on Saturday night.

"There is no indication that the storm will make landfall in the following five days," said

spokesperson Hannlee Doubell.

"The storm retains a moderate tropical storm status."

She explained that the centre of the storm was moving eastward towards the ocean and would not hit land in Richards Bay.

"Due to its position relative to the coastline it will still result in heavy falls of

rain over the southern part of Mozambique, Swaziland, Mpumalanga, and the east coast of South Africa which will create a risk of flooding in those areas," said Doubell.

Rough seas with wave heights of four to six metres were expected from Richards Bay to Maputo, she said.

Disaster management teams across the province were on standby. These teams

would be liaising with municipalities.

On Friday, the SAWS warned the storm system would dump an "extreme" amount of rain on the region over the weekend.

"Areas around Kosi Bay, St Lucia, and Richard's Bay can expect up to 400mm of

rain over this period," Doubell said at the time.

However, the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) was predicting Irina would make landfall further south.

Their prediction was that the cyclone would strike land slightly south of the Mozambican capital city of Maputo on Sunday afternoon. It would make its way into Swaziland before dissipating, but northern KwaZulu-Natal would be affected.

The JTWC was predicting windspeed of up to a maximum 60 knots (111km/h).

by Sapa

There is an unusual calmness now for the longest time; no rain, no wind at all, just a soft drizzling

occasionally and it is much warmer than what it was. But the satellite pictures show the circulating clouds over us, so we're not sure at all what is going on. We're just waiting to see what happens.

According to the news report quoted above the eye of the storm will probably stay over the ocean for some time anyway. But we are hearing conflicting reports as to the actual direction of

the storm right now.

This picture which we got from wunderground.com is taken by someone else at Richard's Bay which is 220 km as the crow flies South of us. Kosi Bay is about 50 km from the center of the cyclone.

Normally the waves do not even reach halfway up this wall of concrete blocks. It is extremely high. For the waves to reach here is massive. It is the biggest harbour in South Africa.