Tropical Cyclone Winston made history when it tore across Fiji's main island of Viti Levu early on Sunday morning. It hit with staggering intensity, with estimated maximum sustained winds of up to 185 miles per hour, with gusts to 225 miles per hour.
This made it the strongest tropical cyclone on record in the entire southern hemisphere, based on wind speed estimates from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center. (However, the period of reliable records in this part of the world is short, dating back to 1980 at the earliest.)
According to Weather Underground, Tropical Cyclone Winston was also the second-strongest storm at landfall anywhere in the world, with only Super Typhoon Haiyan rated as more intense when it caused catastrophic damage to the Philippines in 2013. (Other storms in the northern hemisphere have been stronger prior to making landfall.)
Cyclone Winston was also by far the most intense such storm ever to strike Fiji, and it did so from a direction that is rarely seen there, crossing the coast from east-to-west. (Most storms that threaten Fiji travel from the northwest to southeast.)
According to Australia's ABC News, entire villages were reportedly destroyed by the Category 5 storm, with fears of more devastation in more remote areas.
Fiji's capital, Suva, likely escaped the worst winds, since it sits on the southern part of the main island. However, popular tourist resorts in Viti Levu's west were closer to the cyclone's center.
"Some villages have reported that all homes have been destroyed," said Jone Tuiipelehaki, a communications officer for the UN Development Program, via Twitter.
"50 homes have been reported destroyed in Navaga village in Koro Island," he tweeted.
— Alex Lamers (@AlexJLamers) February 20, 2016
It will take time for the full extent of the storm's damage to become clear, however it's unlikely that areas along the northern part of Viti Levu and the southern side of the neighboring island of Vanua Levu escaped significant damage.
At least one report of sustained winds of 120 miles per hour was reported from the northern side of Viti Levu, and that was likely not the strongest winds seen from this storm.
— Eric Blake (@EricBlake12) February 20, 2016
For perspective, there is just one storm of comparable intensity that has ever struck the United States — the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 that struck the Florida Keys, killing hundreds.
Even the infamous modern-day storms that have devastated parts of the U.S., from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to Hurricane Andrew in 1992, had weaker winds than Cyclone Winston was estimated to have as it approached Fiji.
Tropical Cyclone Winston has been peculiar in other ways, too. It first passed by Fiji from northwest to southeast, then shifted eastward, eventually striking Tonga. It then abruptly reversed course, making a U-turn and hitting parts of Tonga for the second time earlier in the week, before explosively intensifying and heading for Viti Levu.
In the course of its travels, Cyclone Winston crossed the International Dateline twice. It is now moving out to sea west of Fiji, and is not expected to make another menacing U-turn.
Unusually mild waters helped fuel storm
As has been the case with other intense storms seen in the past several years, Tropical Cyclone Winston was fueled in part by milder-than-average ocean temperatures, with waters up to 2 degrees Fahrenheit above average in the area it traversed prior to landfall.
These mild ocean temperatures are likely associated with the ongoing strong El Niño event in the tropical Pacific, but global warming may also be playing some role.
Warm ocean waters also helped fuel Hurricane Patricia, which set an all-time intensity record for the western hemisphere in October of 2015, when it peaked at maximum sustained winds of 210 miles per hour. The storm then weakened significantly before making landfall.
Hurricane Patricia also set a record for the most significant 24-hour intensification rate ever observed in the western hemisphere. Its intensification was aided by unusually mild waters, with a high ocean heat content extending to great depth.
In fact, Hurricane Patricia traversed the mildest sea surface temperatures on record for the eastern Pacific off the coast of Mexico during mid-October, according to a recent analysis by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
As was the case with Hurricane Patricia, Super Typhoon Haiyan and other recent freak storms, other factors also tipped the scales toward a rare event, including low wind shear and an abundance of warm, moist air.