Real-time coverage of severeStorms event on Pandita Data.
⛈️ OPEN LIVE 3D WEATHER ALERTSYou are standing in Fiji, 230 kilometres southwest of Suva. The sky has turned a sickly grey-green. The wind—which was manageable an hour ago—now screams through the palms like a living thing, bending them into shapes they were never meant to hold. Coconuts tear loose and become missiles. The sea is no longer water; it is a vertical wall of spray and fury, climbing higher than the houses. This is Tropical Cyclone Vaianu. And it is here.
Your phone buzzes. A warning from the National Disaster Management Office. Wind gusts exceeding 165 kilometres per hour. Storm surge expected to reach 2.5 metres above normal tide. Inland flooding likely. You have minutes to decide: shelter in place, or evacuate to higher ground. This is not a simulation anymore. This is real.
Tropical Cyclone Vaianu formed over the warm waters of the South Pacific, where sea surface temperatures exceeded 27°C—the critical threshold for cyclogenesis. Warm water is fuel. When the ocean heats the atmosphere above it, air rises in towering columns. As that air ascends and cools, the water vapour condenses, releasing latent heat energy. This energy drives more convection. More convection draws in more air. The Coriolis effect—Earth's rotation—curves the incoming winds into a spiral. Within days, a swirling vortex hundreds of kilometres wide emerges, rotating counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.
At the core sits the eye: a region of descending, warming air where winds briefly calm and skies clear. But surrounding the eye is the eyewall—the most violent part of any cyclone. Here, updrafts exceed 40 metres per second. Rainbands spiral outward, capable of producing 250 millimetres of rain in a single hour. The pressure at Vaianu's centre has dropped to 920 hectopascals, creating a vacuum that sucks air inward at catastrophic speeds.
The South Pacific in April sits at the tail end of the cyclone season. Vaianu's track—moving westward and southwestward—places it directly in the path of Fiji and neighbouring island nations. The shallow waters and coral reefs that define these archipelagos offer no protection from storm surge. When the sea rises, it does not recede gently.
Our real-time weather simulation ingests live data from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC), NOAA's National Hurricane Center, and geostationary satellites. Every 6 hours, we update Vaianu's position, central pressure, and wind field. Infrared satellite imagery reveals cloud-top temperatures—the coldest clouds (darkest on screen) mark the most violent updrafts. Microwave radiometers see through clouds to measure rainfall rates. Model ensemble forecasts show multiple possible futures, each weighted by skill. You can watch the storm evolve in three dimensions, rotate the globe, and see where the most extreme impacts are predicted to strike.
Definition: A rotating storm system with sustained winds ≥119 km/h, forming over warm tropical oceans.
Hazards: Extreme wind, torrential rainfall (flash floods, landslides), storm surge, and tornadoes in the outer bands.
Global frequency: ~80–100 per year across all oceans. Southern Pacific averages 9–10 per season.
Predictability: Track forecasts are reliable 3–5 days out. Intensity remains harder to predict. Wind fields are asymmetrical; the right side of the track (in direction of motion) experiences strongest winds.