Cyclone Mocha Is One of Strongest Storms Recorded in North Indian Ocean

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The remnants of Tropical Cyclone Mocha have moved further inland over Myanmar after coming ashore Sunday with winds of 155 miles per hour on the US wind scale. At its peak the winds reached 175 mph, tying it with 2019’s Tropical Cyclone Fani as the strongest storm recorded in the North Indian Ocean, Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at Yale Climate Connections said in a post.

“Mocha is Earth’s fourth Cat 5 storms of 2023, joining three Southern Hemisphere storms from earlier in the year,” Masters wrote. Those were: Isla, which hit northwest Australia in April, Freddy, which peaked at Category 5 strength east of Madagascar in February and Kevin, which reached the dangerous designation in March southeast of Vanuatu in the South Pacific.

Those three tied a record for the most Category 5 storms to form in the Southern Hemisphere in a single calendar year, Masters said.

Freddy also set a record for the longest-lived storm, taking five weeks to travel the length of the Indian Ocean.

Tropical cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons run and are fueled by warm water, and the world’s oceans have been full of that. Global ocean temperatures hit 0.86C or 1.55F above the long-term average in April, the US National Centers for Environmental Information said. This is the warmest April on record and the second highest for any month, bested only by January 2016.

Combined land and sea temperatures across the Southern Hemisphere reached their highest on record in April, breaking the old record in March 2016, the agency said. The world as a whole has posted its fourth-warmest April on record, with the 10 warmest occurring since 2010. 2016 had the warmest April on record.

And we’re only five months into 2023 and the Northern Hemisphere is about to enter its summer and its peak time for hurricanes, typhoons, droughts and heat waves. The humanitarian costs will likely be high in coming months and if you make your money in commodities, energy, insurance, retail, real estate, travel, and transportation, you know, just about everything, you might want to check your wallet.

In other weather news:

Southeast Asia: The region continues to grapple with blistering heat amid reports of record temperatures and cases of heatstroke.

US Pacific Northwest: An early heat wave took hold Saturday, with temperatures nearing or breaking records in some areas and heat advisories in place through Monday.

Canada: The number of wildfires rose over the weekend as a heat wave brought hot, dry conditions.

New Zealand: The country announced an NZ$1 billion ($619 million) flood and cyclone recovery package.

Photograph: Boats damaged by cyclone Mocha in Sittwe, Myanmar on May 15. Photo credit: Sai Aung Main/AFP/Getty Images