A history of cyclones in the South Pacific, 1970's - present

We kept being told that cyclone Pam is the strongest storm in "12 years", thus reducing the sense of its severity. The cyclone I am referring to, is "Beni", which was also a category 5 and led to food shortages at the time. By comparison, Vanuatu suffered winds of 95 km/h (59 mph) - not quite in the league of this storm, I am sure

This is an excellent resource to see how the strength of cyclones in the South Pacific has changed since the 70’s and 80’s, the last time we had what called be called a stable climate.

In the 70's there were no cyclones that were more severe than a category 2 or 3. The first category 5, "Oscar", appeared in 1983

Cyclone " Bola" which devastated Gisbourne in 1988, was a category 4 cyclone

It can be brought up as a resource in arguments with denier idiots who say that “we’ve always had cyclones – nothings changed”

I was unable to bring the charts into the blog, so for the details GO HERE

List of retired South Pacific tropical cyclone name

Australian tropical cyclone
intensity scale

Category	Sustained winds	Gusts
Five	>107 kt >200 km/h	>151 kt >279 km/h
Four	86-107 kt 160-200 km/h	122-151 kt 225-279 km/h
Three	64-85 kt 118-159 km/h	90-121 kt 165-224 km/h
Two	48-63 kt 89-117 km/h	68-89 kt 125-164 km/h
One	34-47 kt 63-88 km/h	49-67 kt 91-125 km/h
Tropical Low	<34 kt <63 km/h	<49 kt <91 km/h

Tropical cyclones are non-frontal, low pressure systems that develop, within an environment of warm sea surface temperatures and little vertical wind shear aloft.[1] Within the South Pacific, names are assigned from a pre-determined list, to such systems, once they reach or exceed ten–minute sustained wind speeds of 65 km/h (40 mph), near the center, by either the Regional Specialized Meteorological Center in Nadi, Fiji or the Tropical Cyclone Warning Center in Wellington, New Zealand.[1] Within the South Pacific, tropical cyclones have been officially named since the 1964–65 South Pacific cyclone season, though a few meteorological papers show that a few tropical cyclones were named before 1964–65.[2][3][4]The names of significant tropical cyclones that have caused a high amount of damage and/or caused a significant amount of deaths are retired from the lists of tropical cyclone names by the World Meteorological Organization's RA V Tropical Cyclone Committee at their bi-annual meeting.[1]

Within the South Pacific, there have been a total of 85 tropical cyclone names retired, with the 1990s having the most retired tropical cyclone names. The most intense tropical cyclone to have its name retired was Severe Tropical Cyclone Zoe, which had an estimated peak pressure of 890 mbar (26 inHg). The deadliest tropical cyclone to have its name retired was Severe Tropical Cyclone Namu, which caused over 100 deaths, when it affected the Solomon Islands in May 1986. The most damaging system was Severe Tropical Cyclone Val which caused over US$330 million in damage to seven different countries during December 1991.

To see details of Pacific cyclones from the 

70’s to the present GO HERE