Madagascar Is A Hurricane Magnet This Winter

Satellite view of the fourth cyclone to hit 
Madagascar this winter. 

 Madagascar, the island nation off the east coast of Africa, has been hit by three deadly, destructive cyclones this winter. 

Today, a fourth cyclone will strike Madagascar.

Cyclones - which are what hurricanes are called in the Indian Ocean - occasionally strike Madagascar, but this is ridiculous. 

The newest cyclone is named Emnati. It was the equivalent of a category 4 hurricane on Sunday, weakened only a little Monday when it encountered slightly cooler water temperatures, and the storm went through an eyewall replacement cycle, notes Yale Climate Connections. 

The warmer the water, the more likely a hurricane or cyclone will maintain its strength or get more powerful.  Hurricanes often go through eyewall replacement cycles, in which the ring of powerful thunderstorms surrounding the eye of the storm fall apart, only to be replaced by a new ring of scary storms.

During the eyewall replacement cycle, hurricanes usually get weaker, but once the cycle is complete, they can get stronger again.  If this cycle completes itself, Cyclone Emnati would maintain a Category 3 strength, as water temperatures near the Madagascar coast are at 82 degrees, warm enough to make a hurricane happy. 

Category 3 storms have winds of 111 to 130 mph and storm surges of 9 to 12 feet above normal tide levels.  If this cyclone maintains at least Category 2 strength, with winds up to 110 mph, that would make four Category 2 or stronger storms this year. 

I'm getting into the niceties here of hurricanes and cyclones, when in this case, it doesn't really matter of Cyclone Emnati is a category one, two or three.

Yale Climate Connections notes that there is a very slight silver lining to this particular cyclone. Unlike the other three cyclones this season, Emnati is expected to hit southern Madagascar.

The earlier cyclones hit further north, and southern Madagascar is having a drought.  Cyclone Emnati will bring beneficial rains, but it will be too much too quickly. 

There's been a lot of deforestation in recent years and decades on the island and this makes floods worse. The denuded, steep slopes there can't hold onto water nearly as well without trees, so that causes great gushes of water and mud in heavy rains, like what is expected from Enmati. 

Although this is a terrible cyclone year for Madagascar, it so far hasn't broken the record. In 1975 five named storms and three tropical depressions hit the island, says Yale Climate Connections.  

It is also unclear whether climate change is influencing this busy storm year in Madagascar.