By Katalina Siasau

It comes as no surprise that cyclones are forming outside of the normal tropical cyclone (TC) season, as a result of El Niño, Tonga’s Director of Meteorology, ‘Ofa Fa’anunu told Matangi Tonga this morning.

As President of the World Meteorology Organisation (WMO) Region V, which includes Vanuatu, 'Ofa said that Severe Tropical Cyclone Lola that hit Vanuatu this week, marked an early beginning for the 2023/24 tropical cyclone season in the South West Pacific.

“Cyclones were expected, whether in or out of season... the main thing is the El Niño event”, he said.

In a similar conditions to Cyclone Lola, he said that Cyclone Keli that hit Tonga in the middle of June, 1997, was another outside of season cyclone due to the El Niño event of that year.

Warmest year on record

The WMO earlier this month, stated that 2023 is firmly set to be the warmest year on record. This year also recorded the hottest July and August months on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service ERA 5 dataset (graph below).

With that prediction, “weather related events will be highly variable”, said 'Ofa. “In a warmer earth, more tropical cyclones are formed.”

Pre-cyclone Preparedness

Yesterday, Tonga Meteorology issued Tonga’s Tropical Cyclone Outlook for the 2023-24 season, where the country is expecting three (and one severe) tropical cyclone.

Later in the day, Tonga Red Cross Society (TRCS) held a pre-cyclone meeting among the district and town officers of Tongatapu, with stakeholders and partners that included Tonga Meteorology, National Emergency Management Office (NEMO), Ministry of Health, Tonga Fire & Emergency Services, Caritas Tonga, OXFAM, and LDS.

Tonga Red Cross Deputy Secretary General, Sini Latu, said, “We brought together leaders from the grassroots level and leaders from the government, NGOs, and humanitarian sectors, for the purpose of sharing and exchanging information and plans of action, in preparing for the 2023-24 cyclone season, that has been issued in Tonga”.

Concerns

The district officers and town officers voiced out their concerns, mainly the initial visible problems resulted from the El Niño event, that is drought, and lack of clean water resources.

These concerns are a threat to the process and progress of preparedness in Tonga as a whole.

Sini said the most important outcome from the pre-cyclone meeting was the cooperation of the important sectors of Tonga, with the grassroots leaders.