Source: Radio New Zealand
Tropical cyclone Maila, left, was a category 4 storm on Thursday morning, and cyclone Vaianu a category 2. Windy.com screenshot
Severe Topical Cyclone Maila was downgraded to a Category 4 system on Wednesday night but alerts for Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands remain.
The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said as of 4am Thursday AEST, the system had sustained winds near the centre of 185 kilometres per hour with wind gusts to 260 km/h.
The Solomon Islands Meteorological Service has a tropical cyclone warning is place for Western Province.
At 7:30pm last night, local time, Maila was 104km southwest of Ranonnga island, Western Province.
At that time Maila was slowly moving north at 5km/h, southwest of Western Province in the Solomon Sea and intensifying.
The Solomon Star reported a shop in Gizo had part of its roof ripped off in the storm.
The head of police in the western Solomon Islands said the impacts from Maila were the worst the province has seen since a major earthquake and tsunami in 2007.
Wilkin Miriki, who also chairs the provincial emergency operations committee, said they were receiving reports of damages to schools, clinics and residential properties across the province.
In Papua New Guinea, warnings remain current for Milne Bay Province, especially the coastal and island communities of:
- Woodlark
- Sudet
- Rossel Islands
- Bougainville
The governor of Papua New Guinea’s Milne Bay province said they were unprepared for a severe cyclone.
Maila formed near the province earlier in the week, causing widespread damage, before moving towards Solomon Islands.
It is expected to loop back towards PNG in the coming days.
Gordon Wesley said there’s been unprecedented damage, especially in the province’s smaller islands.
He said they do not often get cyclones in Milne Bay.
“The waves are huge, and gardens are basically under water. All the bananas that people would want to survive from are also been fallen.”
Meanwhile, a special gale force warning has been issued for Manus, New Ireland, and West and East Sepik.
Papua New Guinea’s National Weather Service said a tropical low is developing north of the equator with strong to very strong westerly winds dominant over the northern part of PNG.
Vaianu downgraded
Meanwhile,Cyclone Vaianu has been downgraded to a Category 2 system.
As it moved past the Fiji group this week, winds and heavy rain associated with the storm caused flooding and damage in parts of the Fiji group.
The system moved out of Fiji waters to New Zealand waters overnight.
NZ MetService forecaster Brian Mercer told RNZ although different tracks were being shown in modelling, it was very likely somewhere in the North Island would get strong winds and heavy rain.
The entire North Island is under a strong wind watch for Sunday.
A tropical cyclone warning is in place for parts of Tonga as cyclone Vaianu passes nearby.
Heavy rain and strong wind warnings, and a flash flood advisory, are in place for Tongatapu and ‘Eua land areas.
Ha’apai land areas have a heavy rain warning and a flash flood advisory.
– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
