A tropical cyclone warning for Niuatoputapu has been been cancelled this evening and replaced with a strong wind warning as Tropical Cyclone Tuni moves away from Tonga’s northern islands.
Matangi Tonga Online was unable to contact anyone in Niuatoputapu by telephone to find out if there was any damage from the storm today.
Telephone operators for both Tonga Communications Corporation and Digicel Tonga confirmed that neither Niuafo’ou nor Niuatoputapu had telephone services at the moment. “When it is windy it is hard to make contact and the network is down at the moment,” a TCC officer said.
Strong winds
A tropical cyclone warning over the weekend was cancelled by the Fua’amotu Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre at 5:30pm Sunday 29 November 2015, in a final advisory.
However, a strong wind warning is now in force for Niuatoputapu land areas and remains in force for Niuafo’ou, Vava'u, Ha'apai, Tongatapu and 'Eua.
The heavy rain warning previously in force for Niuatoputapu has been also cancelled.
A gale warning remains in force for all Tonga waters.
A heavy damaging swell warning remains in force for all Tonga waters.
Fua’amotu TCWC reported that Tropical Cyclone Tuni (993hpa) was located 16 decimal 3 south,171 decimal 3 west or 260km east of Niuatoputapu at 01:00pm this afternoon with estimated winds of 65km/hr near its centre and is currently moving southeast at 15km/hr.
For all of Tonga:
The forecast is for east to southeast winds 55-65km/hr with gusts up to 75km/hr. Cloudy with scattered showers. Rough to very rough seas with a heavy damaging southeast swell.
Tide predictions:
High tide: 10:15pm
Low tide: 04:35am tomorrow morning (30/1½015)
The mean sea level pressure recorded at Fua'amotu at 5:30pm was 1008.8 millibars and the relative humidity was 68%.
