User:Jason Rees/Nisha-Orama

Cyclone Nisha-Orama

Meteorological history
During February 10, significant cloud activity started to appear along the 10th parallel south between the Northern Cook Islands and French Polynesia's Marquesas Islands. During February 13, the Fiji Meteorological Service reported that a tropical depression had formed within this area of significant cloud activity just to the north of the Marquesas Islands and had started to move south-westwards.

Over the next four days the system maintained its intensity, before it made a sharp eastwards turn and started to develop further. The system subsequently moved in a counter clockwise loop, which allowed it to develop further and it was declared to be a tropical cyclone and named Nisha by the FMS during February 22. However, by the time Fiji had named it Nisha, the Tahiti Meteorological Service had named it Orama, which was retained in order to save any confusion to the local public. Over the next day, the system started to move south-westwards, while it rapidly intensified, with the FMS estimating 10-minute sustained wind-speeds of 100 kn during February 24. During that day the system sharply turned south-eastwards and started to gradually weaken, before it was last noted during February 28, as it moved out of the FMS's area of responsibility, while equivalent to a modern-day category 1 tropical cyclone.

Reanalysis efforts
During 2014, Meteo France's RSMC La Reunion and the French Polynesian Meterological Centre published the results of a reanaylsis, they had undertaken into Severe Tropical Cyclone Nisha-Orama. Within the reanalysis, they found that the system was the most intense to impact French Polynesia and had peaked with 10-minute sustained windspeeds of 228 km/h as well as a minimmum pressure of 898 hPa. This would make it a Category 5 severe tropical cyclone on the Australian scale and a Very Intense Tropical Cyclone on the scale that Meteo France uses. Karl Hoarau, Ludovic Chalonge, Florence Pirard and Daniel Peyrusaubes also reanalysed Nisha-Orama, within a study into Extreme tropical cyclone activities in the southern Pacific Ocean that was published in the Royal Meteorological Society's International Journal of Climatology. They found that the systems intensity had been underestimated and estimated that Nisha-Orama had peaked on February 24, with 1-minute sustained winds of 155 kn.

Effects
The Tuamotu Archipelago was the worst hit area with around 30 of its Atolls, either seriously damaged or destroyed with a damage total of around US$1.7 million reported in two villages on Rangiroa.