The first real cyclone of the season is heading our way, and once again it's doing weird things things, circling on itself and coming back to us when it should be safely passed. (Same thing that Cyclone Winston did, the one that smashed up parts of the country 2 years ago).
Cyclone Gita came over us from the north west, building from a category 1 - 2, passed us and got to Samoa over the weekend as a cat 3. Samoa was badly flooded, no detailed reports yet. Normal expectations would then have had the storm continue down south and east (cyclones spin the opposite way to hurricanes due to southern hemisphere stuff), and head to New Zealand, running out of power on the way as it cooled down.
However, that's not what's happening - it is now turning back west again. Tonight it will be over Tonga, which is now in a preparatory state of emergency - lots of very small, flat, low lying islands going to have a terrible time of it tonight. After that, tomorrow or Wednesday will be heading back to Fiji, this time hopefully staying south of us.
However it has now built to a cat 5, so even if we're not in the direct path, we're going to get rain, wind and rough seas. I live in the capital city, Suva, labelled just above the top left edge of the leading orange circle on the map below. We are not in a bad position, Suva city being built in a deep harbour with lots of hills and good drainage. We are up on a hill, not directly on the water, we have recently trimmed trees around the house, and our water tanks and generator fuel are all filled up in readiness, but we're not exactly waterproof, so tonight we will be raising things off the floor and plastic wrapping others.
We should be fine, if inconvenienced, although we do have a small fibreglass boat I'd prefer not to see sink (again...
). I'm more concerned about my friends in small villages on the outer islands which got slammed last time (see Taveuni on the map below).
Gonna be a fun Valentine's day....
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