Tropical Cyclone Niran leaves damage despite not making landfall

Tropical Cyclone Niran brought a damaging blow to New Caledonia and Australia despite not making landfall in either country.

On Friday, local time, Niran approached New Caledonia as a Category 5 Severe Tropical Cyclone on the Australian and Fiji tropical cyclone scales. This made Niran’s strength equivalent to that of a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

Ultimately, as Niran passed near southern New Caledonia early on Saturday, it lost wind intensity to that of a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone, or equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane. 

Even with weakening and not making a direct landfall, Niran dealt a significant blow to the country causing damage and sending hundreds into shelters.

In the capitol city of Noumea, three evacuation sites housed 400 people on Saturday, according to Franceinfo.

The site also reported that there was damage to roofs, trees and boats in addition to 69,000 without electricity. 

As of Saturday, evening there has been no reports of fatalities and just one injury.

As Niran made its closest pass to Noumea, wind gusts of 75 mph (121 km/h) was reported. And in Kone, wind gusts of 88 mph (144 km/h) was announced. 

Due to the storms relatively fast movement, flooding rainfall was not a significant issue with many locations seeing less than 3 inches (75 mm) of rain. 

Before passing New Caledonia, Niran battered northern Queensland, Australia, early last week. Strong winds and heavy rain caused an estimated $180 million in damage to the banana crop in the region. This equates to about a third of the entire country’s crop. 

Wind gusts around 62 mph (100 km/h) caused extensive damage despite the storm staying well offshore. 

Niran has since tracked into the open waters of the South Pacific Ocean and weakened below tropical cyclone intensity.

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