JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Indian Ocean throughout the entire month of February and the start of March of 2023 has had a continuous tropical system in it: Cyclone Freddy.
According to the World Meteorological Agency the previous record for the longest tracking storm anywhere on earth was Hurricane / Typhoon John in 1994, that storm lasted 31 days as it tracked from the Eastern Pacific past Hawaii and into the Western Pacific, thus what it’s called a Hurricane and a Typhoon. Based on all available data Freddy has surpassed with over 32 days of continued organization.
The storm according to NASA has already set the record for having the highest accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) of any storm in the southern hemisphere on record. ACE is an index used to measure the total amount of wind energy associated with a tropical cyclone over its lifetime, not just the duration or peak intensity.
Freddy also broke the record for having six separate rapid intensification cycles through it's life span, that record also previously held by Hurricane John.
Freddy started February 4th off the coast of Northwest Australia, then marched across the entire Indian ocean peaking as a Category 5 storm on February 19 east of La Reunion.
The storm then moved past the islands of Mauritius and Reunion on 20-21 of February before moving onshore over Madagascar on February 21, the storm tracked over the island and make landfall along the African coast in Mozambique on 24th of February.
Despite making two separate landfalls Cyclone Freddy some how managed to maintain some organization as it drifted back over the Mozambique channel on the 2nd of March where it started to re-intensify.
The storm has been responsible for at least 15 deaths in Madagascar and Mozambique as well as impacting over a million people.
Below is a look at International Space Stations view as it flew over Cyclone Freddy near it's peak.