Tropical cyclone Adjali
14 November 2014 03:00 UTC
The start of the cyclone season for South-West Indian Ocean began in 2014 with the severe tropical storm named Adjali.
06 September 2022
14 November 2014
By Ivan Smiljanic (DHMZ)
The system developed on 14 November and moved in a south-easterly direction over the next few days.
On 19 November the deep convection collapsed and the weakened system started to change its direction to the south west.
There was no impact on land because the trajectory of the cyclone covered only areas of open sea.
Due to a strong convective forcing an area of low pressure developed in the south west Indian Ocean on 15 November.
One of the triggers for such intense convective development could be the propagation of gravity waves from the convective system that rapidly developed some hours before, approximately 1000km southwest from it.
This was the first tropical cyclone that formed during the South Indian Ocean cyclone season that normally starts in late November/early December and lasts until May. It was considered to be a relatively early development of a cyclone.
The system had a northwest-south-southeast loop at the beginning of formation and later continued its trajectory towards the south east for a few days.
The wide bands of thunderstorms developed around the centre of circulation (Figure 1) with many overshooting tops detected on the Meteosat-7 visible image with 2.5km per pixel resolution of the MVIRI instrument (Figure 2). The prominent eye of the system can also be seen at a few stages, looking at the half hourly infrared animation 13 November, 09:00 UTC–19 November, 17:00 UTC.
Maximum sustained winds exceeded 110km/h and the system, as a whole, was moving with the average speed of around 10–15km/h.
South of the system an area of high pressure was present. Moving to the edge of this high pressure system the tropical cyclone was strongly influenced by the upper north-westerly winds which had a negative influence on development of convection (Figure 3).
This vertical shear strongly downgraded the intensity of the cyclone and the residual low level cyclonic system changed its path to a westerly direction (Figure 4).
No damage nor human casualties were reported since the trajectory of the system covered only areas of opened ocean.
Additional content
GPM Measured Tropical Storm Adjali's Rainfall Before Dissipation (NASA)
Tropical Storm Adjali Making The Curve In The Southern Indian Ocean (Science 20)
