Cyclone Chido

Intense Tropical Cyclone Chido was a compact but very powerful, destructive, and deadly tropical cyclone which impacted Southeast Africa in December 2024. Chido, which means a desire in Shona, was the third named storm and the second intense tropical cyclone of the 2024–25 South-West Indian Ocean cyclone season. It became the strongest tropical cyclone to affect Agaléga since Cyclone Andry in 1983, and the most powerful storm to strike Mayotte in at least 90 years. It is also the costliest tropical cyclone on record in the South-West Indian Ocean basin, surpassing Cyclone Idai of 2019. Chido originated from an elongated circulation that the Météo-France office in Réunion (RSMC La Réunion) began monitoring on 7 December, located east of Diego Garcia. In the post-storm analysis, it was indicated that the storm had already begun forming as a zone of disturbed weather on 5 December. On 11 December, Chido rapidly deepened and intensified into an intense tropical cyclone within twelve hours, with its eye passing over Agaléga. Early the next day, the United States Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) upgraded the system to a Category 4-equivalent tropical cyclone, with estimated 1-minute maximum sustained winds of 250 km/h (155 mph), while the MFR estimated its peak intensity with a minimum central pressure of 935 hPa (27.61 inHg) and 10-minute maximum sustained winds of 215 km/h (130 mph) as it maintained its small size and moved westwards. As the system passed off the northern tip of Madagascar, the eye briefly cleared and the central dense overcast remained compact and symmetrical. Chido entered the Mozambique Channel on 14 December, with microwave imagery showing highly developed organized bands of deep convection. Satellite imagery showed cooling cloud tops surrounding a clearing eye, indicating the strengthening of the storm, and on 15 December, Chido made landfall in Pemba,...