Cyclone Gene - Meteorological History

Meteorological History

On January 26, the Fiji Meteorological Service's Regional Specialized Meteorological Center in Nadi, Fiji and the United States Armed Forces Joint Typhoon Warning Center started to monitor a weak tropical disturbance that had developed within the monsoon trough about 290 km (180 mi) to the northeast of the Fijian dependency of Rotuma. The disturbance initially moved towards the southeast before it recurved and started to move towards the southwest and Fiji during the next day, while gradually developing further in an area of low vertical windshear. At 1800 UTC on January 27, the JTWC reported that the disturbance had developed into Tropical Cyclone 15P and started to issue warnings on it as the 1-minute windspeeds had become equivalent to a tropical storm. Over the next 6-12 hours, the disturbance moved towards the southwest and hugged Vanua Levu's southeastern coast, under the influence of a mid level ridge of high pressure that was located to the southeast of the system. 15P's development was hindered while it was located over land, however it did not weaken significantly because it was located in an area of favourable upper level conditions.

While over land the system moved towards the south-southwest and moved into the Bligh Waters, where it started to rapidly intensify as convection erupted around the system. As a result before the system made landfall on Viti Levu, RSMC Nadi reported that the system had intensified into a category 1 tropical cyclone, on the Australian intensity scale and named it Gene. The system then made landfall shortly after 0600 UTC near Lautoka, before it started to move westwards and passed near Nadi before it moved out of the archipelago. Early on January 29 as the system moved westwards, RSMC Nadi reported that Gene had intensified into a category two tropical cyclone before it briefly weakened into a Category 1 because of the effects of a moderate amount of vertical windshear. However, the system quickly reintensified and by 1200 UTC the next day had become a category 3 Severe Tropical Cyclone and equivalent to a Category 1 tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

On January 31, while the storm was moving closer to Vanuatu, Gene attained peak winds of 150 km/h (95 mph) & 185 km/h (115 mph Thus, Cyclone Gene was a Category 3 cyclone on the Australian scale and the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale.

During February 1, as Cyclone Gene was moving to the west, Gene recurved and started moving towards the south and missed Vanuatu. The next day cyclone Gene started to temporarily weaken again by becoming a category two cyclone with winds speeds of 95 km/h (60 mph ). This came as cyclone Gene approached 25°S which marks the edge of RSMC Nadi's area of responsibility, to the south of 25°S the Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre (TCWC) in Wellington, New Zealand monitors tropical cyclones, south of 25°S. As Gene crossed in to TCWC Wellington's area of responsibility, Cyclone Gene started to re-intensify becoming a severe tropical cyclone again with peak winds of 120 km/h (105 mph ) however this re-intensification only lasted for 12 hours before Gene began to weaken for the final time by becoming a tropical cyclone that day. Gene slowly weakened over the next couple of days as it moved towards the south east. The JTWC then issued its final warning on February 6 as Cyclone Gene was finishing its extratropical transition, and had also become fully embedded within the baroclinic zone. TCWC Wellington continued to monitor the extratropical remnants of Gene until February 9, after the sustained windspeeds had dropped to below 65 km/h (40 mph).