Tropical Cyclone Winston Strikes Fiji
February 22, 2016
A visible image of Tropical Cyclone Winston taken from the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) satellite on February 19, 2016. Credit: NASA
On Saturday, February 20, Tropical Cyclone Winston made landfall on the South Pacific island nation of Fiji. (Such storms as tropical cyclones are known as hurricanes when they occur in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, or the Northeast Pacific Ocean.) Winston reached wind gusts as high as 224 miles (360 kilometers) per hour, with sustained winds of 185 miles (298 kilometers) per hour. It was a Category 5 storm (the strongest storm level), which is a storm with sustained winds of at least 156 miles (250 kilometers) per hour. Winston is the strongest tropical cyclone on record for the Southern Hemisphere.
Thousands of people in Fiji have been evacuated from flooded and devastated areas. The death count stands at 21 people, but this is expected to rise as authorities reach outlying islands. Fiji is an archipelago made up of 300 islands, some of which are fairly remote.
Many areas of Fiji have lost electric power and are flooded. Aid workers fear both disease and hunger for Fiji’s population of 900,000. Many crops were destroyed in the storm.
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