Three tropical cyclones are spinning in the South Pacific, an occurrence that scientists say is unusual. Tropical cyclones Rae, Seru and Alfred are all churning as the region is in the peak of a season that starts in November and ends in April.
The storms are called cyclones when they happen in the Southwest Pacific and hurricanes when they form in the North Atlantic, but are essentially the same phenomenon.
“It’s not incredibly unusual to have three hurricanes simultaneously in the month of September in the North Atlantic,” said Brian Tang, an atmospheric science professor at University at Albany. “Certainly it is a very busy period for the South Pacific and three tropical cyclones is a lot to happen at once, but not unprecedented.”
The last time three such storms occurred in the South Pacific was January 2021 when Lucas, Ana and Bina were churning simultaneously, though it’s not clear if Bina officially reached Category 1 status, Tang said.
CSU/CIRA & NOAA via AP
Rae formed Friday north of Fiji and brought whipping winds and heavy rain that damaged fruit trees, according to local reports.
Alfred developed in the Coral Sea on Monday and is expected to bring flooding rains to the northeast Australia state of Queensland this weekend.
Seru became a cyclone on Tuesday and is expected to track near the island nation of Vanuatu but remain offshore.
“The atmosphere is chaotic. There’s a lot of natural fluctuation in it … we need to be open to the possibility that factors that are beyond our ability to predict might have led to these three cyclones at the same time,” said Gabriel Vecchi, a climate scientist at Princeton University.