Weather Services monitors Tropical Storm Eloise, may hit SA shores

Tropical Storm Eloise is classified as moderate but will likely intensify into a severe tropical storm as it hits the coast of Madagascar today.

The weather office predicts the storm will exceed winds up to 100km/h and will cause considerable damage and deliver torrential rain - moving along the coast.

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“Given the steep geographic terrain of eastern Madagascar, flooding and washaways are also a distinct possibility. Moreover, along the coast there will also be a risk of storm surge, especially on the southernmost leading quadrant of the storm system,” a SAWS statement read. 

SAWS will be heavily monitoring the development of the storm as there is potential of it falling into the northeastern lowveld region of South Africa.

“The good news is that, as ‘Eloise’, moves across the landmass of northern Madagascar, it will be exposed to increased friction, as the winds interact with the rough land surface. Moreover, ‘Eloise’ will be deprived of the latent heat energy which it would normally receive from a warm, tropical ocean. We can therefore confidently predict that ‘Eloise’, will weaken significantly during this particular period.”

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They add that later in the lifecycle of “Eloise” it will without doubt begin to redevelop as it drifts back into the open ocean region of the Mozambique Channel this Friday. It will be at this stage that “Eloise” will require close monitoring, as it has the potential to make landfall along the southern Mozambican coastline, between Beira and Vilanculos during the coming weekend. 

“Alternatively, ‘Eloise’ could gradually begin to move on a more southerly parabolic path (often termed a “polewards-accelerating” trajectory), which could potentially take it further down the Mozambican coastline and (possibly) into the northeastern Lowveld region of South Africa.”

The speculative possibility of ‘Eloise’, directly affecting South Africa is only one of a multitude of possible outcomes.

SAWS adds that the tropical systems are notoriously fickle and unpredictable - and the use of modern satellite remote sensing as well as advanced ensemble numeric modelling techniques do, however, mitigate much of this uncertainty, at least in the short-term.

But given the long lead-time, should be a worst-case scenario.