Pacific islands face record cyclone
May powerhouse aiming at New Caledonia
Tropical Cyclone Donna and its 120-mph winds are bearing down on the French territory of New Caledonia in the South Pacific.
On Sunday, as its winds soared to 130 mph, Donna became the most powerful tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere for May, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach.
As of late Monday, the storm was the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale and was moving southeast at 9 mph. Tropical cyclones are the same types of storms as hurricanes or typhoons.
By Tuesday into Wednesday local time, Donna’s center should pass near New Caledonia, bringing flooding rain, possible landslides, coastal flooding and damaging winds, the Weather Channel warned.
Schools in New Caledonia were closed for a public holiday on Monday and would stay shut on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
New Caledonia is more than 1,000 miles east of Australia.
Late last week, Donna downed trees and destroyed a church and many homes as it barreled through Vanuatu’s far northern province of Torba, World Vision reported.
Donna will never again be the name of a hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. It was retired after Hurricane Donna’s violent rampage up the U.S. East Coast in 1960.