Cyclone Tino was the first tropical cyclone for 2020 (and for the 2019/2020 tropical cyclone season) for the South West Pacific.
Monday 13th January 2020
The Fiji Meteorological service issued a Media Release saying a tropical disturbance was likely to form into a tropical cyclone later in the week. The tropical disturbance was approximately 1670 kilometers to the far northwest of Fiji.
You can read the full bulletin issued here
Tuesday 14th January 2020
A heavy rain alert was issued at 9am by the Fiji Meteorological Service.
At 3pm, tropical disturbance TD04F was analysed approximately 1180 kilometres westnorthwest of Nadi or 410 kilometres north-northwest of Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. TD04F is slow moving and is anticipated to make a southeast movement. The potential for this system to develop into a tropical cyclone is moderate to high in the next 24 hours and high in the next 48 hours.
You can read bulletin 53 here.
Wednesday 15th January 2020
From bulletin 54:
At midday, tropical disturbance TD04F was located near 13.1 south latitude, 170.4 east longitude or about 725km west of Rotuma. Close to its centre TD04F is expected to have average winds of up to 40km/hr with momentary gusts to 60km/hr.
TD04F is expected to gradually intensify into a tropical depression by this evening and expected to further intensify into a category 1 cyclone by tomorrow evening.
TD04F is cuirrently moving eastwards at about 19km/hrs. On this track the centre is expected to be located about 580km west of Rotuma at 12am tomorrow and about 374km west of Rotuma at 12pm tomorrow.
Most forecasting models are indicating tropical disturbance TD04F will track towards Vanua Levu as a category 1 tropical cyclone on Friday and could possibly intensify further to a category 2 system.
Therefore, heavy rain with squally thunderstorms and strong winds is anticipated especially over Vanua Levu from later today becoming gale force winds from later tomorrow.
You can read the full bulletin here
Thursday 16th January 2020
Issued at 4pm:
At midday today, tropical depression TD04F was located near 11.7 south latitude, 173.4 east longitude or about 410km west-northwest of Rotuma and about 800km north-northwest of Nadi. Close to its centre TD04F is expected to have average winds of up to 45km/hr with momentary gusts to 80km/hr. TD04F is moving east at about 10km/hr and is expected to gradually intensify into a category 1 cyclone by later today. TD04F is expected to gradually turn towards the southeast and move at about 20km/hr in the next 24hrs. On this forecast track, the centre is expected to be located about 170km north-northwest of Labasa at 12pm tomorrow and 200km southeast of Labasa or about 75km northwest of Lakeba at 12am on Saturday.
You can read the full bulletin here
Friday 17th January 2020
Released 12pm
Tropical Depression TD04F intensified to a category one tropical cyclone at 3am today and named Tropical Cyclone(TC) Tino. TC Tino is anticipated to make landfall over Vanua Levu at 6pm today. At 11am today, TC Tino was located near 14.2 south latitude, 177.9 east longitude or about 210km south-southeast of Rotuma and about 300km northwest of Labasa at 9am today. Close to its centre the cyclone is expected to have average winds of up to 75km/hr with momentary gusts to 100km/hr. TC Tino is moving south-southeast at about 20km/hr. On this forecast track TC Tino is expected to be located about 70km east-southeast of Labasa or 130km west-northwest of Vanua Balavu at 9pm today and about 40km south of Lakeba or 170km north-northeast of Ono-i-Lau at 9am tomorrow.
Saturday 18th January 2020
Tino now upgraded to Category 3
Radio New Zealand reports that Tuvalu "inundated by waves whipped up by Tino". Tino passes around 500km from Tuvalu, but still resulted in waves of up to 8m, in open water
RNZ also reports that evacuation shelters are being opened in Tonga, in preparation for TC Tino's arrival.
Image source: Fiji Meteorological Service
Sunday 19th January 2020
10am (image source - Windy.com) - TC Tino now rated as Category 2
Tino has a central pressure of 968mb, and is steadily weakening as the TC moves south and into cooler waters.
Radio New Zealand reports that overnight, Tonga's main island has been spared the full force of Tino.
Cyclone forecast track:
Monday 20th January 9:00am
Cyclone Tino has been reclassified as an extra tropical low. It is now well away from any land mass, however is still expected to impact the east cost of New Zealand's North Island with waves of between 2-3m. Predicted tack follows:
Radio New Zealand reports that 3000 are without power in Tonga's Ha'apai group
Tuesday 21st January 9:00pm
Both GFS and ECMWF have this storm dropping to the south. On Friday 24th at 6pm NZDT the storm is expected to have a central pressure of somewhere between 93o and 923mb (depending on which model you choose). It will still pack a punch with winds around 40 knots. Here's the windy.com plot for the ECMWF , for that time period.
